• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.261-266
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• 2005

This paper reviews the progress in the VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry) studies of Sgr A$\ast$, the best known supermassive black hole candidates with a dark mass concentration of $4 {\times} 10^6 M_{\bigodot}$ at the center of the Milky Way. The emphasis is on the importance of the millimeter and sub-millimeter VLBI observations in the detection of Sgr A$\ast$'s intrinsic structure and search for the structural variation.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.29 no.spc1
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• pp.125-126
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• 1996

Beijing-Arizona-Taipei-Connecticut (BATC) survey is a long term project to map the spectral energy distribution of various objects using 15 intermediate band filters and aims to cover about 450 sq degrees of northern sky. The SED information, combined with image structure information, is used to classify objects into several stellar and galaxy categories as well as QSO candidates. In this paper, we present a preliminary setup of robust data reduction procedure recently developed at NCU and also briefly discuss general classification scheme: redshift estimate, and automatic detection of variable objects.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.255-259
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• 2001

PMDSPH is a combined 3D particle-mesh and SPH code aimed to simulate the self-consistent dynamical evolution of spiral galaxies including live stellar and collisionless dark matter components, as well as an isothermal gas component. This paper describes some aspects of this code and shows how its application to the Milky Way helps to recover the gas flow within the Galactic bar region from the observed HI and CO longitude-velocity distributions.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.363-365
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• 2012

We report a search for fluctuations of the sky brightness toward the North Ecliptic Pole with AKARI, at 2.4, 3.2, and $4.1{\mu}m$. The stacked images with a diameter of 10 arcminutes of the AKARI-Monitor Field show a spatial structure on the scale of a few hundred arcseconds. A power spectrum analysis shows that there is a significant excess fluctuation at angular scales larger than 100 arcseconds that cannot be explained by zodiacal light, diffuse Galactic light, shot noise of faint galaxies, or clustering of low-redshift galaxies. These findings indicate that the detected fluctuation could be attributed to the first stars of the universe, i.e., Population III stars.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.381-385
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• 2004

Similarly to other cluster of galaxies previously classified as cooling flow systems, the Chandra observation of MKW 3s reveals that this object has a complex X-ray structure hosting both a X-ray cavity and a X-ray filament. Unlike the other clusters, however, the temperature map of the core of MKW 3s shows the presence of extended regions of gas heated above the radially averaged gas temperature at any radius. As the cluster does not show evidences for ongoing major mergers Mazzotta et al. suggest a connection between the heated gas and the activity of the central AGN. Nevertheless, due to the lack of high quality radio maps, this interpretation was controversial. In this paper we present the results of two new radio observations of MKW 3s at 1.28 GHz and 604 MHz obtained at the GMRT. Together with the Chandra observation and a separate VLA observation at 327 MHz from Young, we show unequivocal evidences for a close connection between the heated gas region and the AGN activity and we briefly summarize possible implications.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.571-574
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• 2004

Clusters of galaxies are filled with X-ray emitted hot gas with the temperature of T ${\~}$2-10 keV. Recent X-ray observations have been revealing unexpectedly that many cluster cores have complicated, peculiar X-ray structures, which imply dynamical motion of the hot gas. Moreover, X-ray spectra indicate that radiative cooling of the cool gas is suppressed by unknown heating mechanisms (the 'cooling flow problem'). Here we propose a novel mechanism reproducing both the inhomogeneous structures and dynamics of the hot gas in the cluster cores, based on state-of-the-art hydrodynamic simulations. We showed that acoustic-gravity waves, which are naturally expected during the process of hierarchical structure formation of the universe, surge in the X-ray hot gas, causing a serous impact on the core. This reminds us of tsunamis on the ocean surging into an distant island. We found that the waves create fully-developed, stable turbulence, which reproduces the complicated structures in the core. Moreover, if the wave amplitude is large enough, they can suppress the cooling of the core. The turbulence could be detected in near-future space X-ray missions such as ASTRO-E2.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.59-65
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• 2011

A small number of active galactic nuclei are known to exhibit prominent double peak emission profiles that are well-fitted by a relativistic accretion disk model. We develop a Monte Carlo code to compute the linear polarization of a double peaked broad emission line arising from Thomson scattering. A Keplerian accretion disk is adopted for the double peak emission line region and the geometry is assumed to be Schwarzschild. Far from the accretion disk where flat Minkowski geometry is appropriate, we place an azimuthally symmetric scattering region in the shape of a spherical shell sliced with ${\Delta}{\mu}=0.1$. Adopting a Monte Carlo method we generate line photons in the accretion disk in arbitrary directions in the local rest frame and follow the geodesic paths of the photons until they hit the scattering region. The profile of the polarized flux is mainly determined by the relative location of the scattering region with respect to the emission source. When the scattering region is in the polar direction, the degree of linear polarization also shows a double peak structure. Under favorable conditions we show that up to 0.6% linear polarization may be obtained. We conclude that spectropolarimetry can be a powerful probe to reveal much information regarding the accretion disk geometry of these active galactic nuclei.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.31.3-32
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• 2016

We present the radial variations of the scale heights and the vertical velocity dispersions in a sample of nearby edge-on galaxies using BIMA/CARMA $^{12}CO$ ($J=1{\rightarrow}0$), VLA/EVLA HI, and Spitzer $3.6{\mu}m$ data. Both the disk thicknesses and the velocity dispersions of gas and stars vary with radius, contrary to assumptions of previous studies. We investigate how the interstellar gas pressure and the gravitational instability parameter differ from values derived assuming constant velocity dispersions and scale heights. Using the measurement of the disk thicknesses and the derived radial profiles of gas and stars, we estimate the corresponding volume densities. The gravitational instability parameter Q follows a fairly uniform profile with radius and is ${\geq}1$ across the star-forming disk. The star formation law has a slope that is significantly different from those found in more face-on galaxy studies. The midplane gas pressure appears to roughly hold a power-law correlation with the midplane volume density ratio (${\rho}_{H2}/{\rho}_{HI}$).

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.49.1-49.1
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• 2012

Recently it is found that the globular clusters are not only bound in their host galaxies, but also are wandering between galaxies in Virgo and Coma clusters. The cluster-wide distribution of these intracluster globular clusters (IGCs) suggests that IGCs are an important probe to understand hierarchical structure formation. We present a survey of IGCs in Virgo cluster using HST archive images for four HST/ACS fields located from about 9 arcmin to 40 acrmin from the cluster center. We find ten new IGCs and confirm four previously known IGCs. The number density of IGCs decreases as the distance from the cluster center increases. We derive integrated photometry of IGCs. We also obtain photometry of resolved stars in the outer region of each cluster. These IGCs are fainter than $M_V{\approx}-9.5$ and mostly blue in (V-I) color. showing that they are mostly metal poor. The locations of red giant branch stars of IGCs in color-magnitude diagrams also show that they are meal-poor. We discuss the implications of these results.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.40.1-40.1
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• 2014

We have classified barred galaxies for 418 RC3 sample galaxies within z < 0.01 from SDSS DR7 using the visual inspection, ellipse fitting method and Fourier analysis. We found the bar fraction to be ~60%, 43% and 70% for each method and that the ellipse fitting method tends to miss the bar when a large bulge hides the transition from bar to disk in early spirals. We also confirmed that the Fourier analysis cannot distinguish between a bar and spiral arm structure. These systematic difficulties may have produced the long-time controversy about bar fraction dependence on Hubble sequence, mass and color. We designed a new method to fine bars by analyzing the ratio map of bar strength in polar coordinates, which yields the bar fraction of ~27% and ~32% for SAB and SB, respectively. The consistency with visual inspection reaches around 70%, and roughly 90% of visual strong bar are classified as SAB and SB in our classification. Although our method also has a weakness that a large bulge lowers the value of bar strength, the missing bar fraction in early spirals is reduced to the level of ~1/4 compared to the ellipse fitting method. Our method can make up for the demerits of the previous automatic classifications and provide a quantitative bar classification that agrees with visual classification.