• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.80.1-80.1
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• 2017

We present preliminary results of KVN single dish telescope observations of 80 dense cores in the Orion molecular cloud complex which contains the Orion A, B, and ${\lambda}$ Orionis cloud. We investigate the behavior of the different molecular tracers and look for chemical variations of cores in the three clouds in order to systematically investigate the effects of stellar feedback. The most commonly detected molecular lines (with the detection rates higher than 50%) are N2H+, HCO+, H13CO+, C2H, HCN, and H2CO. The detection rates of dense gas tracers, N2H+, HCO+, H13CO+, and C2H show the lowest values in the ${\lambda}$ Orionis cloud. We find difference between molecular D/H ratios and N2H+/H13CO+ abundance ratios towards different clouds, and between protostellar cores and starless cores. Eight starless cores in the Orion A and B clouds exhibit high deuterium fractionations, larger than 0.10, while in the ${\lambda}$ Orionis cloud, no cores reveal the high ratio. These chemical properties could support that cores in the ${\lambda}$ Orionis cloud are affected by the photo-dissociation and external heating from the nearby H II region, which is a hint of negative stellar feedback on core formation. The striking difference between the [N2H+]/[H13CO+] ratios leads us to suggest that there are significant evolutionary differences between the Orion A/B and ${\lambda}$ Orionis clouds. In order to examine whether starless cores can be candidates of pre-stellar cores, we compared the core masses estimated from the 850 um emission to their Virial masses calculated from the N2H+ line data and find that most of them are not gravitationally bound in the three clouds.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.42.1-42.1
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• 2019

We observed 80 dense cores ($N(H_2)$ > $10^{22}cm^{-2}$) in the Orion molecular cloud complex which contains the Orion A (39 cores), B (26 cores), and ${\lambda}$ Orionis (15 cores) clouds. We investigate the behavior of the different molecular tracers and look for chemical variations of cores in the three clouds in order to systematically investigate the effects of stellar feedback. The most commonly detected molecular lines (with the detection rates higher than 50%) are $N_2H^+$, $HCO^+$, $H^{13}CO^+$, $C_2H$, HCN, and $H_2CO$. The detection rates of dense gas tracers, $N_2H^+$, $HCO^+$, $H^{13}CO^+$, and $C_2H$ show the lowest values in the ${\lambda}$ Orionis cloud. We find differences in the D/H ratio of $H_2CO$ and the $N_2H^+/HCO^+$ abundance ratios among the three clouds. Eight starless cores in the Orion A and B clouds exhibit high deuterium fractionations, larger than 0.10, while in the ${\lambda}$ Orionis cloud, no cores reveal the high ratio. These chemical properties could support that cores in the ${\lambda}$ Orionis cloud are affected by the photo-dissociation and external heating from the nearby H II region. An unexpected trend was found in the $[N_2H^+]/[HCO^+]$ ratio with a higher median value in the ${\lambda}$ Orionis cloud than in the Orion A/B clouds than; typically, the $[N_2H^+]/[HCO^+]$ ratio is lower in higher temperatures and lower column densities. This could be explained by a longer timescale in the prestellar stage in the ${\lambda}$ Orionis cloud, resulting in more abundant nitrogen-bearing molecules. In addition to these chemical differences, the kinematical difference was also found among the three clouds; the blue excess, which is an infall signature found in optically thick line profiles, is 0 in the ${\lambda}$ Orionis cloud while it is 0.11 and 0.16 in the Orion A and B clouds, respectively. This result could be another evidence of the negative feedback of active current star formation to the next generation of star formation.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.19-24
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• 2006

We carried out CO survey toward IR-excess clouds using SRAO 6-m telescope in search of molecular $H_2$. These clouds, which show far-infrared excess over what is expected from HI column density, are considered to be candidates of molecular clouds. In order to find new high Galactic latitude clouds, we made mapping observations for 14 IR-excess clouds selected from Reach et al.(1998) in $^{12}CO$ J = 1 - 0 line, supplementing the similar survey in southern hemisphere (Onishi et al. 2001). $^{12}CO$ emission is detected from three IR-excess clouds among 14 objects. Three newly detected clouds exhibit somewhat clumpy morphology and column densities amount to ${\sim}10^{21}\;cm^{-2}$. One of three clouds, DIR120-28, show discrepancy between IR-excess center and CO emission center. It seems that IR-excess may not be an effective tracer of molecular gas. Instead, optical depth$(\tau)$ excess, i.e., IR-excess corrected for temperature dependence, may be more effective tracer of molecular clouds, since, by combining statistics from both hemispheres, we found that the detection rate is higher for IR-excess clouds with lower dust temperature.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.271-282
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• 2003

We present results of a $H^{13}CN$ J=1-0 mapping survey of molecular clouds toward the Galactic Center (GC) region of $-1.6^{\circ}{\le}{\iota}{\le}2^{\circ}$ and $-0.23^{\circ}{\le}b{\le}0.30^{\circ}$ with 2' grid resolution. The $H^{13}CN$ emissions show similar distribution and velocity structures to those of the $H^{12}CN$ emissions, but are found to better trace the feature saturated with $H^{12}CN$ (1-0). The bright components among multi-components of $H^{12}CN$ line profiles usually appear in the $H^{13}CN$ line while most of the dynamically forbidden, weak $H^{12}CN$ components are seldom detected in the $H^{13}CN$ line. We also present results of other complementary observations in $^{12}CO$ (J=1-0) and $^{13}CO$ (J=1-0) lines to estimate physical quantities of the GC clouds, such as fractional abundance of HCN isotopes and mass of the GC cloud complexes. We confirm that the GC has very rich chemistry. The overall fractional abundance of $H^{12}CN$ and $H^{13}CN$ relative to $H_2$ in the GC region is found to be significantly higher than those of any other regions, such as star forming region and dark cloud. Especially cloud complexes nearer to the GC tend to have various higher abundance of HCN. Total mass of the HCN molecular clouds within $[{\iota}]{\le}6^{\circ}$ is estimated to be ${\~}2 {\times}10^7\;M_{\bigodot}$ using the abundances of HCN isotopes, which is fairly consistent with previous other estimates. Masses of four main complexes in the GC range from a few $10^5$ to ${\~}10^7\;M_{\bigodot}$ All the HCN spectra with multi-components for the four main cloud complexes were investigated to compare the line widths of the complexes. The largest mode (45 km $s^{-1}$) of the FWHM distributions among the complexes is in the Clump 2. The value of the mode tends to be smaller at the farther complexes from the GC.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.20 no.1 s.24
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• pp.7-10
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• 2005

We have calculated 2448 interstellar cloud models to investigate the formation and destruction of high rotational level $H_2$ according to the combinations of five physical conditions: the input UV intensity, the $H_2$ column density, cloud temperature, total density, and the $H_2$ formation rate efficiency. The models include the populations of all the accessible states of $H_2$ with the rotational quantum number J < 16 as a function of depth through the model clouds, and assume that the abundance of $H_2$ is in a steady state governed primarily by the rate of formation on the grain surfaces and the rates of destruction by spontaneous fluorescent dissociation following absorption in the Lyman and Werner band systems. The high rotational levels J = 4 and J = 5 are both populated by direct formation into these levels of newly created molecules, and by pumping from J = 0 and J = 1, respectively The model results show that the high rotational level ratio N(4)/N(0) is proportional to the incident UV intensity, and is inversely proportional to the $H_2$ molecular fraction, as predicted in theory.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.257-260
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• 2005

We have mapped the W 3 giant molecular cloud in the $C^o\;^3P_1-^3 P_o$ ([CI]) line with the Mount Fuji Submillimeter-wave Telescope. The [CI] emission is extended over the molecular cloud, having peaks at three star forming clouds; W 3(Main), W 3(OH), and AFGL 333. The [CI] emission is found to be strong in the AFGL 333 cloud. We have also observed the $C^{18}O,\;CCS,\;N_2H^+$, and $H^{13}CO^+$ lines by using the Nobeyama Radio Observatory 45 m telescope. In the AFGL 333 cloud, we find two massive cores, which are highly gravitationally bound and have no sign of active star formation. The high [$C^o$]/[CO] and [CCS]/[$N_2H^+$] abundance ratios suggest that the AFGL 333 cloud is younger than the W 3(Main) and W 3(OH) clouds.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.38.3-39
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• 2016

We present the results of a search for Very Low-Luminosity Objects (VeLLOs) in the Gould Belt (GB) clouds using infrared and sub-millimeter (sub-mm) data from 1.25 to $850{\mu}m$ and our N2H+ (J = 1-0) observations. We modified the criteria by Dunham et al. to select the VeLLOs in the GB clouds, finding 95 VeLLO candidates, 79 of which are newly identified in this study. Out of 95 sources, 44 were detected in both sub-mm continuum and N2H+ emission and were classified as Group A (the VeLLOs), and 51 sources detected in either sub-mm emission or N2H+ emission were classified with Group B as candidate VeLLOs. We find that these VeLLOs and the candidates are forming in environments different from those of the likely VeLLOs. Seventy-eight sources are embedded within their molecular clouds, and thus are likely VeLLOs forming in a dense environment. The remaining 17 sources are located in low-level extinction regions (Av < 1) connected to the clouds, and can be either background sources or candidate substellar objects forming in an isolated mode. The VeLLOs and the candidates are likely more luminous and their envelopes tend to be more massive in denser environments. The VeLLOs and the candidates are more populous in the clouds where more YSOs form, indicating that they form in a manner similar to that of normal YSOs. The bolometric luminosities and temperatures of the VeLLOs are compared to predictions of episodic accretion models, showing that the low luminosities for most VeLLOs can be well explained by their status in the quiescent phases of a cycle of episodic mass accretion.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.42.2-42.2
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• 2019

Turbulence is one of the natural phenomena in molecular clouds. It affects gas density and velocity fluctuation within the molecular clouds and controls the mode and tempo of star formation. However, despite many years of study, the properties of turbulence remain poorly understood. As part of the Taeduk Radio Astronomy Observatory (TRAO) Key Science Program (KSP), "mapping Turbulent properties In star-forming MolEcular clouds down to the Sonic scale (TIMES; PI: Jeong-Eun Lee)", we have fully mapped two star-forming molecular clouds, the Orion A and the Ophiuchus molecular clouds, in 3 sets of lines ($^{13}CO$ J=1-0, $C^{18}O$ J=1-0, HCN J=1-0, $HCO^+$ J=1-0, CS J=2-1, and $N_2H^+$ J=1-0) using the TRAO 14-m telescope. We apply a statistical analysis, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), which can recover an underlying turbulent-power spectrum from an observed P-P-V spectral map. We compare turbulence properties not only between the two clouds, but also between different parts within each cloud. We present the first result of our observation program.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.99-101
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• 1993

We have searched for the 2 mm transitions of $H_2COH^+(2_{02}-1_{01})$ and $H_2\;^{13}CO(2_{02} - 1_{01},\; 2_{12}-1_{11},\;and\;2_{11}-1_{10})$ toward the dense interstellar molecular clouds Orion A, TMC-1 and L134N using the FCRAO 14 m telescope. None of the transitions have been detected except the $H_2\;^{13}CO$ transitions toward Orion-KL. We set upper limits for the abundances of the protonated formaldehyde ion $(H_2COH^+)$, which are close to the abundances expected from ion-molecule chemistry.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.157-161
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• 2008

We have estimated the fractal dimension of the molecular clouds associated with the Hii region Sh 156 in the Outer Galaxy. We selected the $^{12}CO$ cube data from the FCRAO CO Survey of the Outer Galaxy. Using a developed code within IRAF, we identified slice-clouds (2-dimensional clouds in velocity-channel maps) with two threshold temperatures to estimate the fractal dimension. With the threshold temperatures of 1.8 K, and 3 K, we identified 317 slice-clouds and 217 slice-clouds, respectively. There seems to be a turn-over location in fractional dimension slope around NP (area; number of pixel) = 40. The fractal dimensions was estimated to be D = $1.5\;{\sim}\;1.53$ for $NP\;{\geq}\;40$, where $P\;{\propto}\;A^{D/2}$ (P is perimeter and A is area), which is slightly larger than other results. The sampling rate (spatial resolution) of observed data must be an important parameter when estimating fractal dimension. Fractal dimension is apparently invariant when varying the threshold temperatures applied to slice-clouds identification.