• Korean Journal of Mineralogy and Petrology
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• v.36 no.4
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• pp.355-363
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• 2023

In this study, we explore the nature of clumped isotopes of H₂O molecule using quantum chemical calculations. Particularly, we estimated the relative clumping strength between diverse isotopologues, consisting of oxygen (¹⁶O, ¹⁷O, and ¹⁸O) and hydrogen (hydrogen, deuterium, and tritium) isotopes and quantify the effect of temperature on the extent of isotope clumping. The optimized equilibrium bond lengths and the bond angles of the molecules are 0.9631-0.9633 Å and 104.59-104.62°, respectively, and show a negligible variation among the isotopologues. The calculated frequencies of the modes of H₂O molecules decrease as isotope mass number increases, and show a more prominent change with varying hydrogen isotopes over those with oxygen isotopes. The equilibrium constants of isotope substitution reactions involving these isotopologues reveal a greater effect of hydrogen mass number than oxygen mass number. The calculated equilibrium constants of clumping reaction for four heavy isotopologues showed a strong correlation; particularly, the relative clumping strength of three isotopologues was 1.86 times (HT¹⁸O), 1.16 times (HT¹⁷O), and 0.703 times (HD¹⁷O) relative to HD¹⁸O, respectively. The relative clumping strength decreases with increasing temperature, and therefore, has potential for a novel paleo-temperature proxy. The current calculation results highlight the first theoretical study to establish the nature of clumped isotope fractions in H₂O including ¹⁷O and tritium. The current results help to account for diverse geochemical processes in earth's surface environments. Future efforts include the calculations of isotope fractionations among various phases of H₂O isotopologues with a full consideration of the effect of anharmonicity in molecular vibration.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.38.2-39
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• 2021

I will presents the analysis of the gas properties of the protoplanetary disk surrounding the young low-mass (about 1.2M_sun) triple star, GG Tau A. This work makes use of ALMA observations of rotational lines of CO (¹²CO, ¹³CO and C¹⁸O) together NOEMA observations of a few dozens of other molecules. While the CO emission gives information on the molecular layer close to the disk atmosphere, its less abundant isotopologues ¹³CO and C¹⁸O bring information much deeper in the molecular layer. I will present the analysis of the morphology and kinematics of the gas disk using the CO isotopologues. A radiative transfer model of the ring in CO isotopologues will also be presented. The subtraction of this model from the original data reveals the weak emission of the molecular gas lying inside the cavity. Thus, I am able to evaluate the properties of the gas inside the cavity, such as the gas dynamics, excitation conditions, and the amount of mass in the cavity. High angular resolution observations of CO reveals sprials induced by embedded planet(s) located near the 3:2:1 mean-motion resonance that help to explain the special morphology of the circumbinary disk. I also discuss some chemical properties of the GG Tau A disk. I report the first detection of H2S and C₂S in a protoplanetary disk. The molecule abundance relative to ¹³CO of about twenties other molecules will also be given. In GG Tau A, the detections of rare molecules such as H₂S and C₂S have been probably possible because the disk is more massive (a factor about 3-5) than other disks where the molecules was searched. Such a large disk mass makes the system suitable to detect rare molecules and to study cold-chemistry in protoplanetary disks.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.105.1-105.1
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• 2011

We present the modeling results of deuterium fractionation of water ice, $H_2$, and the primary deuterium isotopologues of $H3^+$ in the physical conditions associated with the star and planet formation process. We calculated the deuterium chemistry for a range of gas temperatures (Tgas~10-30 K) and ortho/para ratio (opr ) of $H_2$ based on state-to-state reaction rates and explore the resulting fractionation including the formation of a water ice mantle coating grain surfaces. We find that the deuterium fractionation exhibits the expected temperature dependence of large enrichments at low gas temperature, but only for opr-H2<0.01. More significantly the inclusion of water ice formation leads to large D/H ratios in water ice (${\geq}10^{-2}$ at 10 K) but also alters the overall deuterium chemistry. For T<20 K the implantation of deuterium into ices lowers the overall abundance of HD which reduces the efficiency of deuterium fractionation at high density. Under these conditions HD will not be the primary deuterium reservoir in the cold dense interstellar medium and $H3^+$ will be the main charge carrier in the dense centers of pre-stellar cores and the protoplanetary disk midplane.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.103-105
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• 2015

The 22 m diameter Mopra telescope in Australia is being used to undertake an improved survey of the CO J = 1-0 line at 3mm along the 4th quadrant of the Galaxy, achieving an order of magnitude better spatial and spectral resolution (i.e. 0.6 and 0.1 km/s) than the Dame et al. (2001) survey that is publically available for the Southern Galactic plane. Furthermore, the Mopra CO survey includes the four principal isotopologues of the CO molecule (i.e. $^{12}CO$, $^{13}CO$, $C^{18}O$ and $C^{17}O$). The survey makes use of an 8 GHz-wide spectrometer and a fast mode of on-the-fly mapping developed for the Mopra telescope, where the cycle time has been reduced to just 1/4 of a second. 38 square degrees of the Galaxy, from $l=306-344^{\circ}$, $b=0{\pm}5^{\circ}$ have currently been surveyed, together with additional 9 sq. deg. regions around the Carina complex and the Central Molecular Zone. We present new results from the survey (see also Burton et al., 2013, 2014). The Mopra CO data are being made publically available as they are published; for the latest release see the project website at www.phys.unsw.edu.au/mopraco.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.36-43
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• 2022

Breakthrough analysis has widely been explored for the dynamic separation of gaseous mixtures in porous materials. In general, breakthrough experiments measure the components of a flowing gas when a gaseous mixture is injected into a column filled with an adsorbent material. In this paper, we report on the design and fabrication of a breakthrough curve measurement device to study the dynamic adsorptive separation of hydrogen isotopologues in porous materials. Using the designed system, an experiment was conducted involving a 1:1 mixture of hydrogen and deuterium passed through a column filled with zeolite 13X (1 g). At room temperature, both hydrogen and deuterium were adsorbed in negligible amounts; however, at a temperature of 77 K, deuterium was preferentially adsorbed over hydrogen. The selectivity was different from that in the existing literature due to the different sample shapes, measurement methods, and column structures, but was at a similar level to that of cryogenic distillation (1.5).

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.42.2-43
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• 2015

Massive stars play a major role in the interstellar energy budget and the shaping of the galactic environment. The water molecule is thought to be a sensitive tracer of physical conditions and dynamics in star-forming regions because of its large abundance variations between hot and cold regions. Herschel/HIFI allows us to observe the multiple rotational transitions of H2O including the ground-state levels, and its isotopologues toward high-mass star-forming regions in different evolutionary stages. Photodissociation regions (PDRs) are also targeted to investigate the distribution of water and its chemistry. We present line profiles and maps of H2O using data from two guaranteed-time key programs "Water In Star-forming regions with Herschel" and "Herschel observations of EXtra-Ordinary Sources". We analyze the temperature and density structures using LTE and non-LTE methods. We also estimate turbulent and expansion velocities, and abundance of water in the inner and outer envelopes using the 1D radiative transfer code. Around high-mass protostars we find H2O abundances of ~10-8-10-9 for the outer envelope and ~10-4-10-5 for the inner envelope, and expansion and turbulent velocities range from 1.0 km s-1 to 2.0 km s-1. The abundances and kinematic parameters of the sources do not show clear trends with evolutionary indicators. The Herschel/HIFI mapping observations of H2O toward the Orion Bar PDR show that H2O emission peaks between the shielded dense gas and the radicals position, in agreement with the theoretical and the observational PDR structure. The derived H2O abundance is ~10-7 and peaks at the depth of AV ~8 mag from the ionization front. Together with the low ortho-to-para ratio of H2O (~1) presented by Choi et al. (2014), our results show that the chemistry of water in the Orion Bar is dominated by photodesorption and photodissociation.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.73.1-73.1
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• 2016

We present preliminary results of the submillimeter continuum observations of 14 Planck Galactic Cold Clumps (PGCCs), located in the ${\lambda}$ Orionis Complex. This region is the nearest large HII region, which is an ideal site for a study of the stellar feedback to its surroundings. We observed 14 PGCCs with JCMT/SCUBA-2 and used J=1-0 transitions of CO isotopologues from the PMO mapping observation. Several sub-clumps toward three PGCCs were detected at $850{\mu}m$. In order to examine whether these clumps can be candidates for pre-stellar cores, we compared each clump mass calculated from the $850{\mu}m$ continuum map to its Virial mass and Jeans mass calculated from the $^{12}CO$ and $C^{18}O$ (1-0) spectra, respectively. All clumps have masses smaller than their Virial and Jeans masses, indicating that none of them are gravitational bound and thus in the pre-stellar core stage. Also, the CO depletion factor, which has been derived from the dust continuum and the $C^{18}O$(1-0) line and can be an indicator of core evolution, toward the clumps is in the range of 1 to 5, suggesting that they are not very evolved dense pre-stellar cores. In addition, within individual PGCCs, we found clear gradients of velocity (${\sim}1km\;s^{-1}\;pc^{-1}$) and temperature (${\sim}10K\;pc^{-1}$) in the $^{13}CO$ (1-0) first moment map and the $^{12}CO$(1-0) excitation temperature map, respectively. This can be attributed to the compression and external heating by the HII region, which may prevent clumps from forming gravitationally bound structures and eventually disperse clumps. These results could be a hint about the negative effect of stellar feedback on core formation.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.37.3-38
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• 2021

One of the key questions on star formation is how the organic molecules are synthesized and delivered to the planets and comets since they are the building blocks of prebiotic molecules such as amino acid, which is thought to contribute to bringing life on Earth. Recent astrochemical models and experiments have explained that complex organic molecules (COMs; molecules composed of six or more atoms) are produced on the dust grain mantles in cold and dense gas in prestellar cores. However, the chemical networks and the roles of physical conditions on chemistry are not still understood well. To address this question, hot (> 100 K) cores in high mass young stellar objects (M > 8 Msun) are great laboratories due to their strong emissions and larger samples than those of low-mass counterparts. In addition, CH₃OH masers, which have been mostly found in high mass star forming regions, can provide constraints due to their very unique emerging mechanisms. We investigate twelve high mass star forming regions in ALMA band 6 observation. They are associated with 44/95 GHz Class I and 6.7 GHz Class II CH3OH masers, implying that the active accretion processes are ongoing. For these previously unresolved regions, 66 continuum peaks are detected. Among them, we found 28 cores emitting COMs and specified 10 cores associated with 6.7 GHz Class II CH3OH masers. The chemical diversity of COMs is found in cores in terms of richness and complexity; we identified up to 19 COMs including oxygen- and nitrogen-bearing molecules and their isotopologues in a core. Oxygen-bearing molecules appear to be abundant and more complex than nitrogen-bearing species. On the other hand, the COMs detection rate steeply grows with the gas column density, which can be attributed to the effective COMs formation in dense cores.