Kyle F. Kaplan

I am currently working at the SOFIA Science Center as an Instrument Scientist to support the GREAT instrument. GREAT is a heterodyne instrument similar to what is found on radio telescopes but is installed on SOFIA and works at THz frequencies. It is designed to observe the interstellar medium at frequencies previously observed only from space, balloon based experiments, and Antarctica.

My research interests focus on the interstellar medium including high resolution spectroscopy of molecular hydrogen (H₂₎ and OH molecules, photodissociation regions, planetary nebulae, feedback from high mass star formation, elemental abundances in nebulae, H II regions, and dust.

Previously I worked as a post-doc with Chad Bender on the data reduction and analysis software for extracting spectra for the HPF and NEID spectrometers. These high precision radial velocity spectrometers are designed to search for Earth mass exoplanets.

In graduate school at the Univeristy of Texas at Austin, I studied gas clouds out in space surrounding newly born or dying stars. Ultraviolet radiation from the stars excites hydrogen molecules in the gas, causing the molecules to rotate and vibrate. As the molecules slow down, they give off energy in the form of near-infrared radiation. I observed this radiation from the molecules with the Immersion Grating INfrared Spectrograph (IGRINS). IGRINS is a high resoultion (R~45000) near-infrared spectrograph that observes both the H and K bands (1.45-2.45 µm) simultaneously. From these observations, I inferred the excitation and physical conditions in the molecular gas.