Merger Signatures of Cold Quasars in the Distant Universe

Quasars have historically been found in galaxies with very little star formation, however, a recently discovered group of quasars called cold quasars has between four to seven times the amount of star formation than similar unobscured, blue quasars. Cold quasars could be an intermediary step in quasar evolution between red quasars and blue quasars or a unique population of objects that will form compact starburst galaxies. I analyzed images of cold quasars from the Hyper Suprime-Cam on the Subaru Telescope to look for signs of galaxy mergers in the disk of their host galaxies. This project may show that cold quasars are triggered by galaxy mergers and are either an earlier stage of quasar evolution or a unique population of quasars.