Kyle F. Kaplan
Astronomer
Interests
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.
I enjoy developing software for reducing, processing, and analysing high resolution spectroscopic data. Check out my GitHub.
Research
I am currently a Research Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin Department of Astronomy. I work on the Immersion Grating INfrared Spectrograph (IGRINS). IGRINS is a high resolution (R~45000) near-infrared spectrograph that observes both the H and K bands (1.45-2.45 µm) simultaneously. With IGRINS, I study gas clouds out in space surrounding newly born or dying stars. Ultraviolet radiation from the stars excites H2 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 From these observations, I inferred the excitation and physical conditions in the molecular gas.
IGRINS Links:
IGRINS Pipeline Package (PLP) - Data reduction software
The Raw and Reduced IGRINS Archive (RRISA) - IGRINS data archive
Muler - Data analysis software
Plotspec - Data analysis software for nebular emsision software and datacubes
Previous Work
I have worked on SOFIA, the flying observatory, as an Instrument Scientist to support the GREAT instrument GREAT was a heterodyne instrument similar to what is found on radio telescopes but is installed on SOFIA and works at THz frequencies. It was designed to observe the interstellar medium at frequencies previously observed only from space, balloon based experiments, and Antarctica.
Previously I worked as a post-doc 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.
