JAMES BATTAT, Pappalardo
Fellow in Physics: 2008-11
Research Interests
James Battat uses astrophysical observations to test fundamental
physics. He is a member of the Apache Point Observatory Lunar
Laser-ranging Operation (APOLLO). By timing the round-trip travel of
pulsed laser light from a telescope on the Earth to reflectors on the
lunar surface, APOLLO measures the Earth-Moon separation to a
precision of one millimeter. These observations enable tests of
Einstein's General Relativity theory, Lorentz Symmetry and the
existence of new fundamental forces.
His research also includes efforts to understand the nature of dark
energy and dark matter which dominate the mass-energy budget of the
Universe. On the dark energy front, he has worked with Christopher
Stubbs and Antony Stark at Harvard to design PISCO: the Parallel
Imager for Southern Cosmological Observations, a simultaneous 4-band
imager for one of the 6.5 meter Magellan telescopes in Chile. PISCO
will determine the redshifts of galaxy clusters to constrain the
evolutionary history of the Universe and the nature of the dark
energy.
As a Pappalardo fellow at MIT, he looks forward to joining the hunt
for the direct detection of dark matter using diffuse gas detectors.
These novel instruments will be sensitive to the direction of arrival
of interacting dark matter particles and will facilitate the
discrimination between dark matter signal events and confounding
backgrounds from other particles.
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Biographical Sketch
James' research interests include observational tests of gravity and searches for dark matter. His Ph.D. research with Christopher Stubbs at Harvard employed lunar and planetary ranging as a precision probe of gravity in the Solar System. At MIT, he works on the DM-TPC dark matter direct detection experiment. James received his Sc.B. in Physics from Brown University in 2001.
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Selected Publications
Battat, J. B. R., Stubbs, C. W. and Chandler, J. F., Solar System Constraints on the Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati Braneworld Theory of Gravity, Phys. Rev. D, 78, 022003, 2008.
Battat, J. B. R, Chandler, J. F. and Stubbs, C. W., Testing for Lorentz
Violation: Constraints on Standard-Model Extension Parameters via
Lunar Laser Ranging, Phys. Rev. Lett., 99, 241103, 2007.
Murphy, T. W., et al., APOLLO: The Apache Point Observatory Lunar Laser-ranging Operation: Instrument Description and First Detections, Pub. of the Astronomy Soc. of the Pacific, 2008.
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