Email: dlk@mit.edu Phone: (617) 253-7294 Address: MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics & Space Research Building 37-664D Cambridge, MA 02139 Popular Talks: "Nearby, Thermally Emitting Neutron Stars" [MIT Pappalardo Fellowships in Physics Symposium, May 2005, Cambridge, MA] Related Links: MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics & Space Research Pappalardo Fellows Biographies Area of Physics: Astrophysics

Research Interests

David Kaplan's research interests center around using neutron stars to constrain fundamental physics. Neutron stars offer a unique laboratory to explore a range of densities, temperatures, and magnetic field strengths far beyond those achievable on Earth. By making specific measurements of nearby, cooling neutron stars, Kaplan hopes to find clues to the interior compositions of neutron stars that will yield important clues for particle physics and the Equation of State for dense matter.

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Biographical Sketch

Kaplan received his Ph.D. from Caltech in 2004, working with Prof. Shri Kulkarni on multi-wavelength (radio, infrared, optical, and X-ray) observations of exotic neutron stars. He used these observations to try to determine the origins of these objects and to use them to constrain fundamental physics. In addition, Kaplan developed a public-use pulsar search machine at the 100-meter Robert Byrd Green Bank Telescope. Before Caltech, Kaplan graduated from Cornell University in 1999 with a degree in Applied and Engineering Physics, having worked with Profs. Jim Cordes and Yervant Terzian. After the completion of his Pappalardo fellowship term in the summer of 2007, Kaplan will continue at MIT as a Hubble Postdoctoral  Fellow.

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Selected Publications

"A Coherent Timing Solution for the Nearby Isolated Neutron Star RX  J0720.4-3125" (D. L. Kaplan & M. H. van Kerkwijk 2005, ApJL, 628, 45).

"A debris disk around an isolated young neutron star" (Z. Wang, D. Chakrabarty,  & D. L. Kaplan 2006, Nature, 440, 772).

"An X-ray Search for Compact Central Sources in Supernova Remnants II: Six  Large Diameter SNRs" (D. L. Kaplan, B. M. Gaensler, S. R. Kulkarni, & P. O. Slane 2006, ApJS, 163, 344).

"An X-ray Search for Compact Central Sources in Supernova Remnants I: SNRs G093.3+6.9, G315.4-2.3, G084.2+0.8, and G127.1+0.5", D. L. Kaplan, et al., 2004, ApJ, 153, 269.

"The Nearby Neutron Star RX J0720.4-3125 from Radio to X-rays", D. L. Kaplan, et al., 2003, ApJ, 590, 1008.

"The Parallax and Proper Motion of RX J1856.5-3754 Revisited", D. L. Kaplan, M. H. van Kerkwijk, and J. Anderson, 2002, ApJ, 571, 447.

"X-Ray Timing of the Enigmatic Neutron Star RX J0720.4-3125", D. L. Kaplan, S. R. Kulkarni, M. H. van Kerkwijk, and H. L. Marshall, 2002, ApJL, 570, 79.

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