• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.75-78
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• 2015

A growing body of evidence has been supporting the existence of so-called "dark molecular gas" (DMG), which is invisible in the most common tracer of molecular gas, i.e., CO rotational emission. DMG is believed to be the main gas component of the intermediate extinction region from Av~0.05-2, roughly corresponding to the self-shielding threshold of $H_2$ and $^{13}CO$. To quantify DMG relative to $H{\small{I}}$ and CO, we are pursuing three observational techniques; $H{\small{I}}$ self-absorption, OH absorption, and THz $C^+$ emission. In this paper, we focus on preliminary results from a CO and OH absorption survey of DMG candidates. Our analysis shows that the OH excitation temperature is close to that of the Galactic continuum background and that OH is a good DMG tracer co-existing with molecular hydrogen in regions without CO. Through systematic "absorption mapping" by the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) and ALMA, we will have unprecedented, comprehensive knowledge of the ISM components including DMG in terms of their temperature and density, which will impact our understanding of galaxy evolution and star formation profoundly.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.171-177
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• 2007

In external galaxies, the velocity dispersion of the atomic hydrogen gas shows a remarkably flat distribution with the galactocentric radius. This has been a long-standing puzzle because if the gas velocity dispersion is due to turbulence caused by supernova explosions, it should decline with radius. After a discussion on the role of spiral arms and ram pressure in driving interstellar turbulence in the outer parts of galactic disks, we argue that the constant bombardment by tiny high-velocity halo clouds can be a significant source of random motions in the outer disk gas. Recent observations of the flaring of H I in the Galaxy are difficult to explain if the dark halo is nearly spherical as the survival of the streams of tidal debris of Sagittarius dwarf spheroidal galaxy suggests. The radial enhancement of the gas velocity dispersion (at R > 25 kpc) due to accretion of cloudy gas might naturally explain the observed flaring in the Milky Way. Other motivations and implications of this scenario have been highlighted.

• 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.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.97-103
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• 2002

We have mapped 1 $deg^2$ region toward a high latitude cloud MBM 40 in the J = 1 - 0 transition of $^{12}CO$ and $^{13}CO$, using the 3 mm SIS receiver on the 14 m telescope at Taeduk Radio Astronomy Observatory. We used a high resolution autocorrelator to resolve extremely narrow CO linewidths of the molecular gas. Though the linewidth of the molecular gas is very narrow (FWHP < 1 km $s^{-1}$ ), it is found that there is an evident velocity difference between the middle upper part and the lower part of the cloud. Their spectra for both of $^{12}CO$ and $^{13}CO$ show blue wings, and the position-velocity map shows clear velocity difference of 0.4 km $s^{-1}$ between two parts. The mean velocity of the cloud is 3.1 km $s^{-1}$. It is also found that the linewidths at the blueshifted region are broader than those of the rest of the cloud. We confirmed that the visual extinction is less than 3 magnitude, and the molecular gas is translucent. We discussed three mass estimates, and took a mass of 17 solar masses from CO integrated intensity using a conversion factor $2.3 {\times} 10^{20} cm^{-2} (K\;km s^{-1})^{-1}$. Spatial coincidence and close morphological similarity is found between the CO emission and dust far-infrared (FIR) emission. The ratio between the 100 f.Lm intensity and CO integrated intensity of MBM 40 is 0.7 (MJy/sr)/(K km $s^{-1}$), which is larger than those of dark clouds, but much smaller than those of GMCs. The low ratio found for MBM 40 probably results from the absence of internal heating sources, or significant nearby external heating sources.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.119-122
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• 2007

From the HCN observations of dense molecular cloud L694-2, Lee et al.(2007) determined internal distributions of density and velocity for the cloud. The density profile collaborates roughly with the Bonnor- Ebert gas sphere, but the velocity field departs significantly from the result of numerical simulations that are started from the BE sphere. Taking L694-2 as an example of collapsing clouds, we have performed a series of collapse simulations and determined initial configurations for the cloud in such a way that the resulting density and velocity profiles both match with the empirically deduced ones. Among many trial configurations the cloud which is initially uniform in density and bound by an expanding envelop depicts most closely the empirically obtained profiles of both density and velocity.