• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.83-90
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• 2010

I briefly review what has been learned from determinations of mean stellar ages and abundances from integrated light studies of early-type galaxies, and discuss some new questions posed by recent data. A short discussion of spectroscopic ages is presented, but the main focus of this review is on the abundances of Fe, Mg, Ca, N, and C, obtained from comparisons of measurements taken in integrated spectra of galaxies with predictions from stellar population synthesis models.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.63.1-63.1
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• 2014

The galaxy disk warp is a common phenomenon, yet their properties and formation mechanism(s) are still unclear. Here, we introduce a new automatic measurement method for the warp properties of stellar disks in nearby edge-on galaxies, including warp's angle, shape, and asymmetry. We obtain isophotal maps of edge-on galaxies and express each of isophote contours in polar coordinates (${\Phi}$, R) centered on the galaxy centers. Two peaks in the ${\Phi}$-R diagram correspond to the outermost tips of each isophote. The locations of peaks, in turn, inform us of the misalignment between their inner and outer galactic planes, i.e., the warp. We apply this method to SDSS Stripe 82 co-added data and discuss its reliability and validity. Based on the measurement of warp properties, we also investigate their correlations with both intrinsic and environmental properties of warped galaxies.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.177-187
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• 2003

Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are distant, powerful sources of radiation over the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to gamma-rays. There is much evidence that they are driven by gravitational accretion of stars, dust, and gas, onto central massive black holes (MBHs) imprisoning anywhere from $\~$1 to $\~$10,000 million solar masses; such objects may naturally form in the centers of galaxies during their normal dynamical evolution. A small fraction of AGNs, of the radio-loud type (RLAGNs), are somehow able to generate powerful synchrotron-emitting structures (cores, jets, lobes) with sizes ranging from pc to Mpc. A brief summary of AGN observations and theories is given, with an emphasis on RLAGNs. Preliminary results from the imaging of 10000 extragalactic radio sources observed in the MITVLA snapshot survey, and from a new analytic theory of the time-variable power output from Kerr black hole magnetospheres, are presented. To better understand the complex physical processes within the central engines of AGNs, it is important to confront the observations with theories, from the viewpoint of analyzing the time-variable behaviours of AGNs - which have been recorded over both 'short' human ($10^0-10^9\;s$) and 'long' cosmic ($10^{13} - 10^{17}\;s$) timescales. Some key ingredients of a basic mathematical formalism are outlined, which may help in building detailed Monte-Carlo models of evolving AGN populations; such numerical calculations should be potentially important tools for useful interpretation of the large amounts of statistical data now publicly available for both AGNs and RLAGNs.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.47.2-47.2
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• 2015

At local, galaxy properties are well known to be clearly different in different environments. However, it is still an open question how this environment-dependent trend has been shaped. In this presentation, we will show the results of our investigation about the evolution of star-formation properties of galaxies over a wide redshift range, from z~2 to z~0.5, focusing its dependence on their stellar mass and environment. In the UKIDSS/UDS region, we estimated photometric redshifts and stellar population properties, such as stellar masses and star-formation rates, using the deep optical and near-infrared data available in this field. Then, we identified galaxy cluster candidates at z~0.5-2. Through the analysis and comparison of star-formation (SF) properties of galaxies in clusters and in field, we found interesting results regarding the evolution of SF properties of galaxies: (1) regardless of redshifts, stellar mass is a key parameter controlling quenching of star formation in galaxies; (2) At z<1, environmental effects become important at quenching star formation regardless of stellar mass of galaxies; and (3) However, the result of the environmental quenching is prominent only for low mass galaxies (M* < $10^{10}M_{\odot}$) since the star formation in most of high mass galaxies are already quenched at z > 1.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.70.2-70.2
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• 2016

Star formation in galaxies is one of the key factors in galaxy evolution. It is believed that star formation is triggered and enhanced by mergers among galaxies or secular evolution. However, how much these two mechanisms contribute on star formation is not well known yet. Recently, many other studies show observational evidences of faint merger features(tidal tails, stellar streams) around nearby galaxies with deep optical imaging. This study aims to investigate the fraction of star forming galaxies exhibiting faint features to total galaxies. We are analyzing samples of 76 star forming galaxies (NUV < -18) to find merger features from stacked B, R band frames taken at Maidanak 1.5m, McDonald 2.1m telescope and g, r frames from Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) MegaCam archival data. With the fraction, we can expect to know the contribution of mergers on star formation to galaxies.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.32.2-32.2
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• 2015

Which mechanism governs star-formation activity in galaxies is still one of the most important, open questions in galactic astronomy. To address this issue, we investigate the specific star formation rate (sSFR) of late-type galaxies as functions of various structural parameters including the morphology, mass, radius, and mass compactness (MC). We use a sample of ~200,000 late-type galaxies with z = 0.02 ~ 0.2 from SDSS DR7 and a catalog of bulge-disk decomposition (Simard et al. 2011; Mendel et al. 2013). We find a remarkably strong correlation between bulge's MC and galaxy's sSFR, in the sense that galaxies with more compact bulge tend to be of lower sSFR. This seems counter-intuitive given that galactic sSFR is driven predominantly by disks rather than bulges and suggests that the central mass density plays a key role in recent star-forming activity. We discuss the physical cause of the new findings in terms of the bulge growth history and AGN activities.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.49.2-49.2
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• 2013

We report preliminary results from a radio study of central galaxies in cool and non-cool core clusters. A cooling flow is expected to rapidly form in the center of galaxy clusters unless additional heating mechanisms such as merging with sub clusters are at work. It has been suggested that cool flows can feed the AGN in the central galaxies, increasing their power. On the other hand, the AGN feedback can also affect the surrounding medium, heating back up the gas in the cluster core region. In this study, we investigate the co-evolution of cool flows and the AGN of galaxies located in the cluster center. For this study, we have selected 13 radio bright central galaxies from clusters with a range of cooling time scale. In this work, we present results of our recent observations using the Korean VLBI Network. We discuss the properties of the sample in radio and other wavelengths.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.53.3-54
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• 2016

We combine a semi-analytic model of galaxy evolution with constraints on circumstellar habitable zones and the distribution of terrestrial planets in order to probe the suitability of galaxies of different mass and type to host habitable planets, and how it evolves with time. We find that the fraction of stars with terrestrial planets in their habitable zone (known as habitability) depends only weakly on galaxy mass, with a maximum around $4{\times}10^{10}M_{\odot}$. We estimate that 0.7% of all stars in Milky Way-type galaxies to host a terrestrial planet within their habitable zone, consistent with the value derived from Kepler observations. On the other hand, the habitability of passive galaxies is slightly but systematically higher, unless we assume an unrealistically high sensitivity of planets to supernovae. We find that the overall habitability of galaxies has not changed significantly in the last ~8 Gyr, with most of the habitable planets in local disk galaxies having formed ~1.5 Gyr before our own solar system. Finally, we expect that ${\sim}1.4{\times}10^9$ planets similar to present-day Earth have existed so far in our galaxy.

• Bulletin of the Korean Space Science Society
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.34.3-34.3
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• 2009

We have investigated the recent star formation history of the nearby galaxies using the SDSS optical and Galex UV data. To everyone's surprise, we found that roughly 30 percent of elliptical galaxies had a residual star formation in the last billion years, suggesting that residual star formation has been common even in ellipticals. Galaxy evolution models based on semi-analytic prescriptions including AGN feedback reasonably reproduce the star formation properties of elliptical galaxies. However, we found that the current galaxy models miserably fail to reproduce the star formation properties of satellite disc galaxies in cluster environments. Satellite disc galaxies in models are overly star-formation quenched in comparison to observation. Detailed investigations led us to conclude that this is due to the use of inaccurate prescriptions for the gas content evolution in the model. I present a solution to the problem by adopting more realistic physical prescriptions.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.87.1-87.1
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• 2012

The fraction of blue galaxies in clusters is found to dramatically increase with redshift. This trend has been known as the Butcher-Oemler (B-O) effect which implies a significant evolution among the cluster galaxy population with time. It has been proposed that the blue galaxies in B-O clusters are at their last stage of star formation, probably using up the gas, which then might have evolved into red and passive cluster galaxies as found in the Local Universe. To test this hypothesis and ultimately to understand the evolution of cluster galaxy population as a function of redshift, we have embarked a multi-wavelength study of two carefully selected galaxy clusters at z~0.2 where the B-O effect becomes first noticeable. In this talk, I will introduce the Blind Ultra-deep Distant HI Environmental Survey (BUDHIES) on those two clusters and relevant multi-wavelength observations. Also, I will present the preliminary results of our recent Nobeyama CO observations of two galaxies selected among the BUHDIES sample.