The University of Tokyo announced Masaomi Tanaka, IPMU Postdoc as a recipient of the 2009 the President's Award for his contribution on "Observational and Theoretical Studies on Supernova Explosions"
Observational and Theoretical Studies on Supernova Explosions
Masaomi Tanaka
Various elements around us, such as carbon, oxygen or iron, are synthesized in stars, and ejected to the universe by “supernova” explosions. It is known that supernova explosions are the final fate of some stars. However, the mechanism of the supernova explosion has been unsolved for long time, and it is one of the most important questions in astronomy. Masaomi Tanaka has studied the nature of supernova explosions by means of both observations and theoretical simulations. With the Subaru Telescope, he observed the various vibrational directions (so called polarization) in the emission from supernovae, and clarified that supernova explosions have a complex three-dimensional structure. This result constitutes a new step to understand the mechanism of supernova explosions. During the PhD course, he published a textbook for undergraduate students as well as papers in scientific journals, and some of his results were broadcasted in newspapers in 2009. He won the President Award of University of Tokyo for these activities.