Inoa is currently a student at UH Manoa pursuing an Astrophysics Degree and a minor degree in Hawaiian Studies. Born and raised in Honolulu on O‘ahu island, and is a 2024 graduate of Punahou School. His goals are to engage in cosmological research, and also indigenous research. With the hope of one day coming back to Hawai‘i and teaching what he can in STEM to the Native Hawaiian Community. A couple of other things he enjoys doing is working part time at a local bakery, occasionally playing on his Xbox, listening to Hawaiian Music, and talking story.
Home Island: O‘ahu
High School: Punahou School
Institution when accepted: UH Manoa
Project Site: Institute for Astronomy, Hilo, Hawai‘i Island
Mentors: David Jones & Nicole Drakos
Project title: Tracing the Initial Mass Function in Merging Galaxies Using Supernovae and Citizen Science
Project Abstract:
The uniformity of the Initial Mass Function (IMF), the distribution of stellar masses in a star-forming population, boils down to one unanswered question: does every galaxy form stars like the Milky Way? Previous studies of the IMF used resolved stellar populations, which are only available for nearby galaxies; this project will instead analyze supernovae types in merging systems classified by citizen scientists. These stellar explosions will help to trace the fraction of massive stars in merger environments, which, due to turbulence, metal enrichment, and increased molecular gas and dust density, provide a unique environment for star formation. The citizen science platform used for this project was Zooniverse, which allowed us to classify images with a simple and effective workflow. The images used for classification were created by overlaying FITS data from optical bands to comprise a three-color image, and source detection was used as an initial filter to isolate images with more than one bright object. Citizen scientists were tasked with estimating the degree of galaxy interaction, the galaxy’s morphology, and the supernova location. With this data, we are going to compare the ratio of core collapse supernovae that occur in merging systems with undisturbed systems to search for evidence of an IMF that favors forming higher fractions of high-mass stars in merging systems. Preliminary results of this study will be presented.