• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.33.1-33.1
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• 2013

Galaxies undergo various processes in the cluster environment, which could affect their evolution. In particular, ram pressure due to intracluster medium (ICM) can effectively remove HI gas, which is a relatively diffuse form of interstellar medium (ISM). On the other hand, molecular gas is not expected to get easily stripped as atomic gas since it is denser and sitting well within the stellar disk in a deeper potential well. However, cluster galaxies are found to be redder and more passive in star formation activity compared to their field counterpart. This implies that molecular gas may also get affected somehow in dense environments. In this work, we investigate molecular gas properties of a sample of galaxies undergoing HI stripping due to the ICM. We present the 12/13 CO (2-1) data of four spiral galaxies in the Virgo cluster at different ram pressure stripping stages, obtained using the Sub Millimeter Array (SMA). CO morphology of the sample appears to be highly asymmetric and disturbed. Using the ratio of different lines, we probe the molecular gas temperature in different regions. We find higher gas temperature than the range normally found among field galaxies. We discuss how these distinct molecular gas properties may affect star formation and hence the evolution of the cluster galaxy population.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.39.3-39.3
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• 2016

About one tenth of dwarf elliptical galaxies found in the Virgo cluster have a disk component, and some of them even possess substructures such as bars, lens, and spiral arms. We use N-body simulations to study the formation of these non-axisymmetric features in disky dwarf elliptical galaxies. By mimicking VCC 856, a bulgeless dwarf galaxy with embedded faint spiral arms, we construct 11 sets of initial conditions with slight dynamical variations based on observational data. Our standard model starts slowly to form a bar at ~3 Gyr and then undergoes buckling instability that temporarily weakens the bar although the bar strength continues to grow afterward. We find 9 of our models are unstable to bar formation and undergo buckling instability. This suggests that disky dwarf elliptical galaxies are intrinsically unstable to form bars, accounting for a population of barred dwarf galaxies in the outskirts of the Virgo cluster. To understand the origin of the faint grand-design spiral arms, we additionally construct 6 sets of models that undergo tidal interactions with their neighbors. We find that faint spiral arms consistent with observations develop when tidal forcing is relatively weak although strong encounter still results in bar formation. We discuss our results in light of the dynamical evolution of dwarf elliptical galaxies including mergers.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.65.2-65.2
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• 2016

We present a new database of our two-dimensional bulge-disk decompositions for 14,482 galaxies drawn from SDSS DR12 in order to examine the properties of bulges residing in the local universe (0.005 < z < 0.05). We performed decompositions in g and r bands by utilizing the GALFIT software. The bulge colors and bulge-to-total ratios are found to be sensitive to the details in the decomposition technique. The g-r colors of bulges derived are almost constantly red regardless of bulge size except for the bulges in the low bulge-to-total ratio galaxies (approximately $B/T_r{\leq}0.3$). Bulges exhibit similar scaling relations to those followed by elliptical galaxies, but the bulges in galaxies with lower bulge-to-total ratios clearly show a gradually larger departure in slope from the elliptical galaxy sequence. The scatters around the scaling relations are also larger for the bulges in galaxies with lower bulge-to-total ratios. Both the departure in slopes and larger scatters are likely originated from the presence of young stars. While bulges seem largely similar in optical properties to elliptical galaxies, they do show clear and systematic departures as a function of bulge-to-total ratio. The stellar properties and perhaps associated formation processes of bulges seem much more diverse than those of elliptical galaxies.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.37.2-37.2
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• 2014

Gas in disk galaxies interacts nonlinearly with a underlying stellar spiral potential to form galactic spiral shocks. Numerical simulations typically show that these shocks are unstable to the wiggle instability, forming non-axisymmetric structures with high vorticity. While previous studies suggested that the wiggle instability may arise from the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability or orbit crowding of gas elements near the shock, its physical nature remains uncertain. It was even argued that the wiggle instability is of numerical origin, caused by the inability of a numerical code to resolve a shock that is inclined to numerical grids. In this work, we perform a normal-mode linear stability analysis of galactic spiral shocks as a boundary-value problem. We find that the wiggle instability originates physically from the potential vorticity generation at a distorted shock front. As the gas follows galaxy rotation, it periodically passes through multiple shocks, successively increasing its potential vorticity. This sets up a normal-mode that grows exponentially, with a growth rate comparable to the orbital angular frequency. We show that the results of our linear stability analysis are in good agreement with the those of local hydrodynamic simulations of the wiggle instability.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.74.3-75
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• 2019

Recent Integral Field Spectroscopy (IFS) studies revealed that not only late type galaxies (LTGs) but also early type galaxies (ETGs) have various kinds of kinematic rotation. (e.g. not clearly detectable rotation, disk-like rotation, kinematically distinct core (Cappellari 06)) Among the various studies about galactic kinematics, one of the most notable anomalies is the star-gas misalignment. The gas forms stars and stars release gas through mass-loss. In this process, their angular momentum is conserved. Therefore, kinematic decoupling between stars and gas can occur due to external gas inflow or perturbation of components. There are some possible origins of misalignment: cold gas from filaments, hot gas from outer halo, interaction or merging events with galaxies and environmental effects. Misalignment, the black box from mixture of internal and external gas, can be an important keyword for understanding further about galaxies' kinematics and external processes. Using both SAMI IFS data(Sydney-AAO Multi-object Integral field spectrograph Galaxy Survey, Croom+12) and Horizon-AGN simulation(Dubois+14), we examined misaligned galaxies properties and distribution. Because the simulation has lots of galaxies at various z, we were able to study history of formation, evolution and extinction of misalignment, which was hard to be done with observation only.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.38.2-38.2
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• 2010

We present ultraviolet (UV) color-magnitude relations (CMRs) of early-type dwarf galaxies in the Virgo cluster, based on Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) UV and Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) optical imaging data. We find that dwarf lenticular galaxies (dS0s), including peculiar dwarf elliptical galaxies (dEs) with disk substructures and blue centers, show a surprisingly distinct and tight locus separated from that of ordinary dEs, which is not clearly seen in previous CMRs. The dS0s in UV CMRs follow a steeper sequence than dEs and show bluer UV-optical color at a given magnitude. We also find that the UV CMRs of dEs in the outer cluster region are slightly steeper than that of their counterparts in the inner region, due to the existence of faint, blue dEs in the outer region. We explore the observed CMRs with population models of a luminosity-dependent delayed exponential star formation history. We confirm that the feature of delayed star formation of early-type dwarf galaxies in the Virgo cluster is strongly correlated with their morphology and environment. The observed CMR of dS0s is well matched by models with relatively long delayed star formation. Our results suggest that dS0s are most likely transitional objects at the stage of subsequent transformation of late-type progenitors to ordinary red dEs in the cluster environment, In any case, UV photometry provides a powerful tool to disentangle the diverse subpopulations of early-type dwarf galaxies and uncover their evolutionary histories.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.65-65
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• 2011

Early-type galaxies represent the end point of galaxy evolution and, despite pervasive residual star formation, are generally considered "red and dead", that is composed exclusively of old stars with no star formation. Here, their molecular gas content is constrained and discussed in relation to their evolution, supporting the continuing importance of minor mergers and/or cold gas accretion. First, as part of the Atlas3D survey, the first complete, large, volume-limited survey of CO in normal early-type galaxies is presented. At least of 23% of local early-types possess a substantial amount of molecular gas, the necessary ingredient for star formation, independent of mass and environment but dependent on the specific stellar angular momentum. Second, using CO synthesis imaging, the extent of the molecular gas is constrained and a variety of morphologies is revealed. The kinematics of the molecular gas and stars are often misaligned, implying an external gas origin in over a third of all systems, more than half in the field, while external gas accretion must be shot down in clusters. Third, many objects appear to be in the process of forming regular kpc-size decoupled disks, and a star formation sequence can be sketched by piecing together multi-wavelength information on the molecular gas, current star formation, and young stars. Fourth, early-type galaxies do not seem to systematically obey all our usual prejudices regarding star formation (e.g. Schmidt-Kennicutt law, far infrared-radio continuum correlation), suggesting a greater diversity in star formation processes than observed in disk galaxies and the possibility of "morphological quenching". Lastly, a first step toward constraining the physical properties of the molecular gas is taken, by modeling the line ratios of density- and opacity-sensitive molecules in a few objects. Taken together, these observations argue for the continuing importance of (minor) mergers and cold gas accretion in local early-types, and they provide a much greater understanding of the gas cycle in the galaxies harbouring most of the stellar mass. In the future, better dust masses and dust-to-gas mass ratios from Herschel should allow to place entirely independent constraints on the gas supply, while spatially-resolved high-density molecular gas tracers observed with ALMA will probe the interstellar medium and star formation laws locally in a regime entirely different from that normally probed in spiral galaxies.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.70.1-70.1
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• 2021

We examine the HI gas kinematics and distributions of galaxy pairs in group or cluster environments from high-resolution Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) WALLABY pilot observations. We use 32 well-resolved close pair galaxies from the Hydra, Norma, and NGC 4636, two clusters and a group of which are identified by their spectroscopy information and additional visual inspection. We perform profile decomposition of HI velocity profiles of the galaxies using a new tool, BAYGAUD which allows us to separate a line-of-sight velocity profile into an optimal number of Gaussian components based on Bayesian MCMC techniques. Then, we construct super profiles via stacking of individual HI velocity profiles after aligning their central velocities. We fit a model which consists of double Gaussian components to the super profiles, and classify them as kinematically cold and warm HI gas components with respect to their velocity dispersions, narrower or wider 𝜎, respectively. The kinematically cold HI gas reservoir (M_cold/M_HI) of the paired galaxies is found to be relatively higher than that of unpaired control samples in the clusters and the group, showing a positive correlation with the HI mass in general. Additionally, we quantify the gravitational instability of the HI gas disk of the sample galaxies using their Toomre Q parameters and HI morphological disturbances. While no significant difference is found for the Q parameter values between the paired and unpaired galaxies, the paired galaxies tend to have larger HI asymmetry values which are derived using their moment0 map compared to those of the non-paired control sample galaxies in the distribution.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.50.3-51
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• 2021

The progenitor of Type Ia supernovae is largely expected as a close binary system of a carbon/oxygen white dwarf (WD) primary and its secondary non-degenerate (single degenerate; SD) or degenerate companion (double degenerate; DD). Here we present a high-cadence monitoring observation of SN 2021hpr in a spiral galaxy, NGC 3147. SN 2021hpr shows typical characteristics as a normal type Ia supernova from its photometric (Δm₁₅(B)=1.01±0.03, dust free M_B,max=-19.45±0.02) and spectroscopic data. To investigate its progenitor system, we fit the early part of BVRI-band light curve simultaneously with a combined version of ejecta-companion and simple power-law model. As a result, we found a significant feature of an early excess possibly from a 7.63±0.52R_⊙-sized companion at the optimal viewing angle while the fit is not successful at the common viewing angle. No possible red sources brighter than F555W=-7.01 AB mag is detected at the SN location in Hubble Space Telescope (HST) pre-explosion images, excluding massive stars with initial mass of >16M_⊙ as companions. We suggest the progenitor system of SN 2021hpr can be a fairly large companion such as a main sequence, a low mass subgiant, and a helium giant star. In addition, a possibility of the ejecta-Disk Originated Matter (DOM) interaction for the DD scenario considering linearly-rising early flux still remains.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.57-57
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• 2010

We report the discovery of a bright mid-infrared (MIR) source with prominent crystalline silicate emission using the space telescope AKARI and Spitzer. This source, IRAS 15099-5856, has a spectacular morphology with a bright central compact source (CCS) surrounded by knots, spurs, and several extended (~4') arc-like filaments. The source is seen only in infrared at ${\geq}10{\mu}m$. The Spitzer MIR spectrum of the CCS shows prominent emission features from Mg-rich crystalline silicates and strong [Ne II] 12.88 ${\mu}m$ and several other faint ionic lines. We model the MIR spectrum as thermal emission from several independent dust components and compare their properties to those of the Herbig Be star HD 100546 which shows very similar MIR spectrum. Our molecular line observations reveal two molecular clouds around the source, but no associated dense molecular cores. We discuss two possible origins for IRAS 15099-5856; a deeply embedded massive young stellar object on the other side of the Galaxy and a disrupted, protoplanetary disk being photoevaporated by the UV radiation from the nearby O star Muzzio 10.