• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.232.1-232.1
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• 2012

With flourishing of new facilities, we are now set to expand the horizon of the human knowledge of the universe deep into the very beginning of the cosmic history of astronomical objects. In such an endeavor, extreme objects and cosmic events such as violent cosmic explosions, rapidly growing supermassive black holes, and proto-clusters of galaxies, are the objects to be investigated in order to unveil what was happening in the very early universe. We will discuss what we have learned and are expecting to discover from such extreme objects about the infant universe both currently and in future, highlighting some of our recent works.

• Bulletin of the Korean Space Science Society
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.29.4-30
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• 2008

We present elemental abundances of 12 red giants obtained with the BOAO 1.8m telescope and its fiber-fed echelle spectrograph. We perform the abundance analysis using the Kurucz model atmosphere and MOOG. Comparisons of our alpha- and neutron-capture elemental abundances and those in globular clusters and nearby dwarf galaxies will be presented.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.72.4-72.4
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• 2019

Galaxy scaling relations, such as the Tully-Fisher relation and the fundamental plane can be used to derive redshift-independent distances. These two scaling-relations are valid for mutually exclusive morphological galaxy types, solid group catalogues are required to compare them within galaxy clusters hosting multiple galaxies. With our investigation, we aim to better understand systematic effects between the scaling rations that may cause potential biases in peculiar motion studies.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.35.1-35.1
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• 2016

Nearby galaxy clusters and their surrounding regions represent the current endpoint of evolution galaxy cluster evolution. We present a new catalog of 1589 galaxies, what we call Extended Virgo Cluster Catalog (EVCC), in wider area of the Virgo cluster based on the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7. The EVCC covers an area 5.2 times larger than the footprint of the classical Virgo Cluster Catalog, and reaches out to 3.5 times the virial radius of the Virgo cluster. The EVCC contains fundamental information such as membership, morphology, and photometric parameters of galaxies. The EVCC defines a comprehensive galaxy sample covering a wider range in galaxy density that is significantly different from the inner region of the Virgo cluster. It will be the foundation for forthcoming galaxy evolution studies in the extended Virgo cluster region, complementing ongoing and planned Virgo cluster surveys at various wavelengths. We also present the large scale structures in the field around the Virgo cluster. We identified seven galaxy filaments and one possible sheet in three dimensions of super-galactic coordinates based on the HyperLEDA database. By examining spatial distribution and Hubble diagram of galaxies, we found that six filaments are directly associated with the main body of the Virgo cluster. On the other hand, one filament and one sheet are structures located at background of the main body of Virgo cluster. The EVCC and the filament structures will be the foundation for forthcoming studies of galaxy evolution in various environments as well as buildup of the galaxy cluster at z ~ 0, complementing ongoing and planned Virgo cluster surveys at various wavelengths.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.29 no.spc1
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• pp.151-154
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• 1996

We examine the observations of large-scale magnetic fields in the Universe. We begin at the largest scale with clusters of galaxies and work our way down through galaxies and finally to the Milky Way. on which we concentrate in detail. We examine the observations of the Galactic magnetic field, and their interpretation, under the philosophy that the Galactic magnetic field is like that in other spiral galaxies. We use pulsar data. diffuse Galactic synchrotron emission, and starlight polarization data to discuss the Galaxy's global magnetic configuration and the uniform ($B_u$), random ($B_r$), and total ($B_t$) components of the field strength. We find disagreement among conclusions derived from the various data sets and argue that the pulsar data are not the best indicator for large-scale Galactic field. Near the Solar circle, we find that the azimuthal average of $B_t$ is 4.2$\mu$G and we adopt $B_u\~$2.2 and $B_r\~3.6{\mu}G$. $B_t$ is higher in spiral arms, reaching $\~5.9{\mu}G$. $B_t$ is higher for smaller $R_{Gal}$, reaching $\~8.0{\mu}G$ for $R_{Gal}$ = 4.0 kpc. The pattern of field lines is not concentric circles but spirals. The inclination of the magnetic spiral may be smaller than that of the Galaxy's spiral arms if our sample, which refers primarily to the interarm region near the Sun, is representative. However, it is not inconceivable that the local field lines follow the Galaxy's spiral pattern, as is observed in external galaxies.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.89-89
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• 2014

While the current consensus view holds that galaxy mergers are commonplace, it is sometimes speculated that Globular Clusters (GCs) may also have undergone merging events, possibly resulting in massive objects with a strong metallicity spread such as Omega Centauri. Galaxies are mostly far, unresolved systems whose mergers are most likely wet, resulting in observational as well as modeling difficulties, but GCs are resolved into stars that can be used as discrete dynamical tracers, and their mergers might have been dry, therefore easily simulated with an N-body code. It is however difficult to determine the observational parameters best suited to reveal a history of merging based on the positions and kinematics of GC stars, if evidence of merging is at all observable. To overcome this difficulty, we investigate the applicability of supervised and unsupervised machine learning to the automatic reconstruction of the dynamical history of a stellar system. In particular we test whether statistical clustering methods can classify simulated systems into monolithic versus merger products. We run direct N-body simulations of two identical King-model clusters undergoing a head-on collision resulting in a merged system, and other simulations of isolated King models with the same total number of particles as the merged system. After several relaxation times elapse, we extract a sample of snapshots of the sky-projected positions of particles from each simulation at different dynamical times, and we run a variety of clustering and classification algorithms to classify the snapshots into two subsets in a relevant feature space.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.50 no.4
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• pp.93-103
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• 2017

We explore the shock acceleration model for giant radio relics, in which relativistic electrons are accelerated via diffusive shock acceleration (DSA) by merger-driven shocks in the outskirts of galaxy clusters. In addition to DSA, turbulent acceleration by compressive MHD modes downstream of the shock are included as well as energy losses of postshock electrons due to Coulomb scattering, synchrotron emission, and inverse Compton scattering off the cosmic background radiation. Considering that only a small fraction of merging clusters host radio relics, we favor a reacceleration scenario in which radio relics are generated preferentially by shocks encountering the regions containing low-energy (${\gamma}_e{\leq}300$) cosmic ray electrons (CRe). We perform time-dependent DSA simulations of spherically expanding shocks with physical parameters relevant for the Sausage radio relic, and calculate the radio synchrotron emission from the accelerated CRe. We find that significant level of postshock turbulent acceleration is required in order to reproduce broad profiles of the observed radio flux densities of the Sausage relic. Moreover, the spectral curvature in the observed integrated radio spectrum can be explained, if the putative shock should have swept up and exited out of the preshock region of fossil CRe about 10 Myr ago.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.187-188
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• 2007

This contribution to the IV Korea-Mexico meeting deals with the hydrodynamics of the matter reinserted within super star clusters (SSCs) by both stellar winds and supernova explosions, results recently printed in The Astrophysical Journal (Silich et al. 2007). The motivation of such a project arose from the persistent presence of the small mass and compact HII regions that sit right on top of many massive and compact SSCs, from which one expects a large mechanical energy power. The data used for our calculations appear only recently (see Smith et al. 2006) for the massive and compact SSC M82-A1. We presented in our paper the calculated flow, derived through analytical and semi-analytical methods, which led to almost identical results. We have found out that the only way of accommodating a compact HII region (4.5 pc in radius, in the case of M82-A1) on top of a 6.3 Myr old and massive (> $10^6M_{\bigodot}$) SSC with a half light radius of 3 pc, requires of two assumptions: a very low heating efficiency (< 10%) within the cluster, what leads to a bimodal solution (see Tenorio-Tagle et al. 2007) and a high pressure in the surrounding medium.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.427-431
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• 2004

We use simulations of large-scale structure formation to study the build-up of magnetic fields (MFs) in the intergalactic medium. Our basic assumption is that cosmological MFs grow in a magnetohy-drodynamical (MHD) amplification process driven by structure formation out of a magnetic seed field present at high redshift. This approach is motivated by previous simulations of the MFs in galaxy clusters which, under the same hypothesis that we adopt here, succeeded in reproducing Faraday rotation measurements (RMs) in clusters of galaxies. Our ACDM initial conditions for the dark matter density fluctuations have been statistically constrained by the observed large-scale density field within a sphere of 110 Mpc around the Milky Way, based on the IRAS 1.2-Jy all-sky redshift survey. As a result, the positions and masses of prominent galaxy clusters in our simulation coincide closely with their real counterparts in the Local Universe. We find excellent agreement between RMs of our simulated galaxy clusters and observational data. The improved numerical resolution of our simulations compared to previous work also allows us to study the MF in large-scale filaments, sheets and voids. By tracing the propagation of ultra high energy (UHE) protons in the simulated MF we construct full-sky maps of expected deflection angles of protons with arrival energies $E = 10^{20}\;eV$ and $4 {\times} 10^{19}\;eV$, respectively. Accounting only for the structures within 110 Mpc, we find that strong deflections are only produced if UHE protons cross galaxy clusters. The total area on the sky covered by these structures is however very small. Over still larger distances, multiple crossings of sheets and filaments may give rise to noticeable deflections over a significant fraction of the sky; the exact amount and angular distribution depends on the model adopted for the magnetic seed field. Based on our results we argue that over a large fraction of the sky the deflections are likely to remain smaller than the present experimental angular sensitivity. Therefore, we conclude that forthcoming air shower experiments should be able to locate sources of UHE protons and shed more light on the nature of cosmological MFs.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.35.1-35.1
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• 2016

To understand the coevolution of Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs) and their host clusters, we conduct a case study on the BCGs in dynamically young and old clusters, Abell 1139 (A1139) and Abell 2589 (A2589). We analyze the pixel color-magnitude diagrams (pCMDs) using deep g- and r-band images, obtained from the CFHT observations. (1) While the overall shapes of the pCMDs are similar to those of typical early-type galaxies, the A2589-BCG tends to have redder mean pixel color and smaller pixel color deviation at given surface brightness than the A1139-BCG. (2) The mean pixel color distribution as a function of pixel surface brightness indicates that the A2589-BCG formed a larger central body by major dry mergers at an early epoch than the A1139-BCG, while they have grown commonly by subsequent minor mergers. (3) The spatial distributions of the pixels with deviated colors reveal that the A1139-BCG experienced considerable tidal events more recently than the A2589-BCG, whereas the A2589-BCG has an asymmetric compact core possibly resulting from major dry merger at an early epoch. (4) The A2589-BCG shows a very large faint-to-bright pixel number ratio compared to early-type non-BCGs, whereas the ratio for the A1139-BCG is not distinctively large. These results imply that the BCG in the dynamically older cluster (A2589) formed earlier and is relaxed better.