• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.55.4-56
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• 2017

Complex organic molecules (COMs) are commonly detected in star forming regions and considered important species since they are seeds of prebiotic molecules. Although COMs form in ice mantles on dust grains, they are preferentially detected in the gas phase. The origin of the gaseous COMs highly depends on the circumstance of each star forming region. Therefore, the distribution of COMs emission reflects the physical and chemical conditions of the region. We present the newly detected COMs, especially methanol emission lines toward two massive star forming regions, G19.61-0.23 and G75.78+0.34 in the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array Band 3 observations during the Cycle 2 phase. Multiple transitions of methanol are detected in both regions but show different emission morphology. The origin of the desorption (e.g. shocks or high energy photons) is discussed.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.297-298
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• 2012

ANIR (Atacama Near InfraRed camera) is a near infrared camera for the University of Tokyo Atacama 1m telescope, installed at the summit of Co. Chajnantor (5,640 m altitude) in northern Chile. The high altitude and extremely low water vapor (PWV = 0.5 mm) of the site enable us to perform observation of hydrogen $Pa{\alpha}$ emission line at $1.8751{\mu}m$. Since its first light observation in June 2009, we have been carrying out a $Pa{\alpha}$ narrow-band imaging survey of nearby luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs), and have obtained $Pa{\alpha}$ for 38 nearby LIRGs listed in AKARI/FIS-PSC at the velocity of recession between 2,800 km/s and 8,100 km/s. LIRGs are affected by a large amount of dust extinction ($A_V$~ 3 mag), produced by their active star formation activities. Because $Pa{\alpha}$ is the strongest hydrogen recombination line in the infrared wavelength ranges, it is a good and direct tracer of dust-enshrouded star forming regions, and enables us to probe the star formation activities in LIRGs. We find that LIRGs have two star-forming modes. The origin of the two modes probably come from differences between merging stage and/or star-forming process.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.66.2-66.2
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• 2016

KASI and NAOJ are making collaborating efforts to implement faster mapping capability into the new 275-500 GHz Atacama Submillimeter Telescope Experiment focal plane array (FPA). Feed horn antenna is one of critical parts of the FPA. Required fractional bandwidth is almost 60 % while that of traditional conical horn is less than 50 %. Therefore, to achieve this wideband performance, we adopted a horn of which the corrugation depths have a longitudinal profile. A profiled horn has features not only of wide bandwidth but also of shorter length compared to a linear-tapered corrugated horn, and lower cost fabrication with less error can be feasible. In our design process the flare region is represented by a cubic splined curve with several parameters. Parameters of the flare region and each dimension of the throat region are optimized by a differential evolution algorithm to keep >20 dB return loss and >30 dB maximum cross-polarization level over the operation bandwidth. To evaluate RF performance of the horn generated by the optimizer, we used a commercial mode matching software, WASP-NET. Also, Gaussian beam (GB) masks to far fields were applied to give better GB behavior over frequencies. The optimized design shows >23 dB return loss and >33 dB maximum cross-polarization level over the whole band. Gaussicity of the horn is over 96.6 %. The length of the horn is 12.5 mm which is just 57 % of the ALMA band 8 feed horn (21.96 mm).

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.73.2-73.2
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• 2017

고적색편이의 $Ly{\alpha}$ 방출은하($Ly{\alpha}$ emitter; LAE)는 UV 연속복사에 비해 강한 $Ly{\alpha}$ 방출선을 내는 천체로서 매우 젊고, 낮은 금속함량을 가진 원시은하이다. LAE의 강한 $Ly{\alpha}$ 방출선은 먼지가 매우 적기 때문에 소광이 거의 없이 은하에서 탈출하거나, 먼지의 국지적인 분포 때문에 나타나는 것으로 추정된다. 그러나 기존 전파관측 시설의 낮은 감도 때문에 LAE의 먼지성분은 잘 알려져 있지 않다. 우리는 Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA)에 의해 우연히 관측된 LAE을 찾아 먼지연속복사를 직접적으로 검출하는 시도를 해 보았다. COSMOS와 ECDFS 영역에서 발견된 약 954개의 LAE 중에서 총 38개가 ALMA로 관측된 영역에 우연히 위치한다는 것을 발견하였고, 이 중 18개의 LAE에 대해 ALMA 관측영상을 모두 더하는 방법(image stacking)을 이용하여, LAE에서 방출되는 먼지연속복사의 상한선을 결정하였다: S(0.50-0.67mm) < $63.2{\mu}Jy$, S(0.21-0.38mm) < $46.7{\mu}Jy$. 본 연구에서는 비록 직접적인 검출에는 실패하였으나, 주어진 LAE 샘플에 대한 ALMA archive 검색, 원자료 다운로드, 영상 만들기, 이미지 합침 과정을 자동화하는 Python 파이프라인을 완성하였다. 이 자동화된 과정을 이용하면, 앞으로 ALMA archive가 늘어남에 따라 감도가 높아진 실험을 쉽게 반복할 수 있을 것으로 기대된다.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.57.1-57.1
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• 2014

We present the preliminary results of CO outflow survey toward the 56 Very Low Luminosity Object (VeLLO) candidates at CO J=2-1 and J=3-2 transitions with two radio telescopes of the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory (CSO) and the Atacama Submillimeter Telescope Experiment (ASTE). The survey is aimed to understand the origin of the formation of low-mass stars or substellar objects. The VeLLO is a very faint (${\leq}0.1$ $L_{\odot}$) object deeply embedded in dense molecular clouds and believed to be a proto-brown dwarf which will be a brown dwarf or a faint protostar which has just formed with little mass accretion or which is in quiescent stage of episodic accretion. The candidates were searched for over all nearby ($d{\leq}450$ pc) Gould belt clouds and listed in a new catalogue of the VeLLO candidates by Kim et al. (2014 submitted). To diagnose present status and future fate of the VeLLOs, we conducted a systematic observation for the CO molecular outflows of the 56 VeLLOs to infer how accretion is being made around the VeLLOs. We found 17 VeLLO candidates either having a prominent wing in line profiles or showing bipolar intensity distribution of high velocity components. We will discuss the physical properties of these CO outflows and the identity of the VeLLO candidates.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.59.2-59.2
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• 2019

Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) aims to resolve the innermost region to the super massive black hole (SMBH) with its extremely high angular resolution (~20-25 uas) and enhanced sensitivity (down to 1-10 mJy) in concert with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) at 1.3 mm wavelength. This has a great importance as the first observational probe of the black hole shadow which has been theoretically predicted as a ring-like emission affected by the general relativistic effect under a strong gravitational field of SMBH. During the 2017 April 5-11, four nights of EHT observing campaign were carried out towards its primary targets, M87 and $SgrA{\ast}$. To robustly ensure the data processing, independent pipelines for various radio data calibration softwares (e.g., AIPS, HOPS, CASA) have been developed and cross-compared each other. The EHT has also been developing newer interferometric imaging techniques (e.g., eht-imaging-library, SMILI, dynamical imaging), as well as using an established method (CLEAN). With these, the EHT has designed various strategies which will be adopted for convincing imaging results. In this talk, I review how the robustness of EHT data processing and imaging will be validated so that the results can be ensured against well known uncertainties or biases in the interferometric data calibration and imaging.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.56.2-56.2
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• 2021

Constraining the structure and thus the fate of giant molecular clouds (GMCs), the primary sites of star formation in galaxies, is crucial to understand the evolution of galaxies themselves. Exploiting the unprecedented sensitivity and angular resolution of the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA), we have measured the spatially-resolved (~ 20 pc resolution) properties of the GMCs in two nearby late-type galaxies, NGC 5806 (SAB(s)b) and NGC 6753 ((R)SA(r)b), as part of the WISDOM project. Although these results are preliminary, we identified ~ 200 resolved GMCs in NGC 5806 within a radius of 500 pc, most within a nuclear ring structure, and ~ 400 resolved GMCs in NGC 6753 within a radius of 2 kpc, most within a flocculent spiral structure. The GMCs of NGC 5806 have similar sizes but slightly higher linewidths than clouds in the Milky Way disc. Because the GMCs also have higher surface densities, the calculated cloud Virial parameters are nevertheless about unity, suggesting that the GMCs of NGC 5806 are in gravitational equilibrium and thus long lived. This is contrary to other WISDOM results on earlier-type galaxies, where large cloud linewidths are likely due to shear associated with the local (circular) orbital motions (rather than the clouds' self-gravity), and the clouds are either marginally or not gravitationally bound. These results support the notion that spheroids alter the dynamical states of clouds (morphological quenching), that are otherwise (i.e. in galaxy discs) fairly homogenous and similar to those of the Milky Way.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.39.3-39.3
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• 2019

Ram pressure stripping due to the intracluster medium (ICM) is an important environmental process, which causes star formation quenching by effectively removing cold interstellar gas from galaxies in dense environments. The evidence of diffuse atomic gas stripping has been reported in several HI imaging studies. However, it is still under debate whether molecular gas (i.e., a more direct ingredient for star formation) can be also affected and/or stripped by ram pressure. The goal of this thesis is to understand the impact of ram pressure on the molecular gas content of cluster galaxies and hence star formation activity. To achieve this, we conducted a series of detailed studies on the molecular gas properties of three Virgo spiral galaxies with clear signs of active HI gas stripping (NGC 4330, NGC 4402, and NGC 4522) based on high-resolution CO data obtained from the Submillimeter Array (SMA) and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). As a result, we find the evidence that the molecular gas disk also gets affected by ram pressure in similar ways as HI even well inside of the stellar disk. In addition, we detected extraplanar 13CO clumps in one of the sample, which is the first case ever reported in ram pressure stripped galaxies. By analyzing multi-wavelength data (e.g., Hα, UV, HI, and CO), we discuss detailed processes of how ram pressure affects star formation activities and hence evolution of cluster galaxies. We also discuss the origin of extraplanar 13CO, and how ram pressure can potentially contribute to the chemical evolution of the ICM.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.64.1-64.1
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• 2020

Galaxy groups are the place where many galaxies feel the impact of the surroundings (e.g., merging, tidal interaction, ram pressure stripping) before joining bigger structures like (sub)clusters. A significant fraction of galaxies is quenched in the group environment. Such "pre-processing" of galaxies in groups is likely to affect galaxy evolution tremendously. To better understand how environmental processes in galaxy groups affect molecular gas, star formation activity, and galaxy evolution, we carried out CO imaging observations of group galaxies, using the Atacama Compact Array (ALMA/ACA). We selected all the targets that have been detected in the GEMS-HI survey for two groups, making the sample of 40 galaxies (18 galaxies in IC 1459 group and 22 galaxies in NGC 4636 group). Our ALMA/ACA observation is the first CO imaging survey for two groups. In this work, we present CO images of group galaxies, together with their star formation maps and HI images. Our ACA CO data show the asymmetric distribution of molecular gas in some of our samples. We discuss the impact of the group environment on molecular gas and star formation activity.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.33.2-33.2
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• 2020

Our HI monster sample is a set of local HI-rich galaxies identified by the ALFALFA survey (Arecibo Legacy Fast Survey ALFA) at z<0.08. Intriguingly, they are also found with a relatively large molecular gas reservoir compared to the galaxies with similar stellar mass and color, yet their star formation rate is quite comparable to normal spirals. This makes our HI monsters good candidates of galaxies in the process of gas accretion which may lead to the stellar mass growth. One feasible explanation for their relatively low star formation activity for a given high cool gas fraction is the gas in monsters being too turbulent to form stars as normal spirals. In order to verify this hypothesis, we probe the molecular gas kinematics of 10 HI monsters which we observed using the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA). We utilize the tilted ring model to investigate what fraction of the molecular gas in the sample is regularly and smoothly rotating. In addition, we model the molecular gas disk using the GALMOD package of the Groningen Image Processing System (GIPSY) and compare with the observations to identify the gas which is offset from the 'co-planar differential rotation'. Based on the results, we discuss the possibility of gas accretion in the sample, and the potential origin of non-regularly rotating gas and the inefficient star formation.