Presidential Young Investigator Award: Research in Pulsars and Interstellar Medium

库尔卡尼已经在星际介质研究和脉冲星搜索方面做出了重大贡献。他将继续在这些主题上工作，但专注于光学干涉测量，使用无线电技术进行相位闭合。根据总统青年研究员计划，该奖项颁发给一位天体物理学家，他在星际介质、脉冲星搜索和天文仪器设计方面的工作已经享誉全球。他是第一颗自转周期只有几毫秒的脉冲星的共同发现者，这一现象为人们对恒星老化提供了新的理解。库尔卡尔尼是干涉测量学方面的专家，这是一种使用几个望远镜提供天文物体联合清晰图像的方法。他希望将一种特别有效的无线电干涉测量技术扩展到光学和红外波长。作为第一个目标，他将从帕洛马山五米望远镜获得尽可能清晰的图像，尽管地球大气层不断变得模糊。

Kulkarni has already made major contributions in research on the interstellar medium and in the search for pulsars. He will continue work on these topics but concentrate on optical interferometry, using radio techniques for phase closure. This award under the Presidential Young Investigator Program is made to an astrophysicist who already has a worldwide reputation for his work on the interstellar medium, search for pulsars, and design of astronomical instrumentation. He was co-discoverer of the first pulsar with a rotation period of only a few milliseconds, a phenomenon that provided new understanding concerning the aging of stars. Kulkarni is an expert on interferometry, the method of using several telescopes to provide a joint sharp image of an astronomical object. He expects to extend a particularly effective technique of radio interferometry to the optical and infrared wavelength. As a first objective, he will obtain the sharpest possible images from the Mount Palomar five-meter telescope despite the continual blurring of the Earth's atmosphere.