• 천문학회보
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• 제42권1호
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• pp.29.1-29.1
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• 2017

I present new near-infrared (NIR) photometry of globular cluster (GC) systems associated to a cD galaxy NGC 4874 in the core of the Coma cluster and 16 early-type galaxies in the Fornax and Virgo clusters of galaxies using the Infrared Channel of the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3/IR) on board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Combining these high-resolution NIR data with new HST Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) optical photometry for NGC 4874 and existing ACS GC catalogs from the ACS Fornax and Virgo Cluster Surveys, I have examined for the first time the GC systems in a statistically significant optical/NIR sample of galaxies spanning a wide range of luminosities and colors. A primary goal of this study is to explore empirically whether the distributions of purely optical and hybrid optical - NIR color indices for extragalactic GCs have different forms and whether the relations between these color indices are nonlinear, indicating that they behave differently with underlying metallicity. I find that some GC systems of large galaxies in our sample show color bimodalities that differ between the optical and optical - NIR colors, in the sense that they have disparate ratios of "blue" and "red" peak GCs, as well as differing ratios in their color dispersions. Consistent with these results, I find empirically that the dependence of hybrid optical-NIR color on purely optical color is nonlinear, with an inflection at intermediate metallicities. These findings underscore the importance of understanding the nature of galaxy-to-galaxy variations in the GC color distributions and color-color relations, as well as the exact forms of the color-metallicity transformations, in interpreting the observational data on GC color bimodality. Our ACS data for NGC 4874 shows that its GC system exhibits a very strong blue tilt, implying a very steep mass-metallicity scaling, and the centroid of this GC system is offset by $4{\pm}1kpc$ from the luminosity center of NGC 4874, in the direction of NGC 4872. Finally, I discuss the asymmetrical GC distribution around a dwarf elliptical galaxy in Coma that has a very high relative velocity with respect to the cluster mean at small clustercentric radius.

• 천문학회보
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• 제41권1호
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• pp.33.1-33.1
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• 2016

Dwarf elliptical galaxies (dEs), the most abundant galaxy type in clusters, were recently shown to exhibit a wide variety in their properties. Particularly, the presence of blue cores in some dEs, what we call dE(bc), supports the scenario of late-type galaxy infall and subsequent transformation into red, quiescent dEs. While several transformation mechanisms for these dE(bc)s within cluster environment have been proposed, all these processes are able to explain only some of the observational properties of dEs. In this context, internal kinematic properties of dE(bc)s provide the most crucial evidence to discriminate different processes for the formation of these galaxies. We present Gemini Multi Object Spectrograph (GMOS) long-slit spectroscopy of two dE(bc)s in the Virgo cluster. We obtained radial profiles of velocity and velocity dispersion out to ~1.3 effective radius. We found that two dE(bc)s exhibit kinematically decoupled components as well as distinct peculiar features in velocity profiles, supporting the scenario of mergers. We also found that these galaxies are structurally compatible with low surface brightness component of blue compact dwarf galaxies. We suggest that a part of dE(bc)s in the Virgo Cluster were formed through galaxy merger in low density environment such as galaxy group or outskirt of the cluster, and then were quenched by subsequent effects within cluster environment.

• 천문학회보
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• 제37권2호
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• pp.81-81
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• 2012

Since the ultraviolet (UV) flux of an integrated population is a good tracer of recent star formation activities, UV observations provide an important constraint on star formation history (SFH) in galaxies. We present UV color-magnitude relations (CMRs) of early-type dwarf galaxies in the Virgo cluster, based on Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) UV data and the Extended Virgo Cluster Catalog (EVCC, Kim, S. in prep.). The EVCC covers an area 5.4 times larger (750 deg2) than the footprint of the classical Virgo cluster catalog by Binggeli and collaborators. We secure 1304 galaxies as members of the Virgo cluster and 526 galaxies of them are new objects not contained in the VCC. Morphological classification of galaxies in the EVCC is based on the optical image ("Primary Classification") and spectral feature ("Secondary Classification") of the SDSS data. We find that dwarf lenticular galaxies (dS0s) show a surprisingly distinct and tight locus separated from that of ordinary dwarf elliptical galaxies (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. Most early type dwarf galaxies with blue UV colors (FUV-r < 6 and NUV-r < 4) are identified as those showing spectroscopic hints of recent or ongoing star formation activities. We explore the observed CMRs with population models of a luminosity-dependent delayed exponential star formation history. The observed CMR of dS0s is well matched with 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.

• 천문학회보
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• 제38권2호
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• pp.36-36
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• 2013

Globular clusters (GCs) are among the oldest stellar objects in the universe and provide valuable constraints on many aspects of galaxy evolution. GC systems typically exhibit bimodal color distributions the phenomenon of which has been a major topic in the area of GC research. GC color bimodality established a paradigm where scenarios to explain its origin require two GC groups with different formation origins. The GC division, asserted mainly by photometric color bimodality so far, has been viewed as the presence of two distinct metallicity subgroups within individual galaxies. In this study, we make use of spectroscopy of GC systems associated with two giant galaxies, M31 (the Andromeda) and M87 (NGC 4486), to investigate the GC bimodality and the underlying metallicity distributions. Recent spectroscopy on the globular cluster (GC) system of M31 with unprecedented precision witnessed a clear bimodality in absorption-line index distributions of old GCs. Given that spectroscopy is a more detailed probe into stellar population than photometry; the discovery of index bimodality may point to the very existence of dual GC populations. However, here we show that the observed spectroscopic dichotomy of M31 GCs emerges due to the nonlinear nature of metallicity-to-index conversion and thus one does not necessarily have to invoke two separate GC subsystems. We present spectra of 130 old globular clusters (GCs) associated with the Virgo giant elliptical galaxy M87, obtained using the Multi-Object Spectrography (MOS) mode of Faint Object Camera and Spectrograph (FOCAS) on the Subaru telescope. M87 GCs with reliable metallicity measurements exhibit significant inflection along the color-metallicity relations, through which observed color bimodality is reproduced from a broad, unimodal metallicity distribution. Our findings lend further support to this new interpretation of the GC color bimodality, which could change much of the current thought on the formation of GC systems and their host galaxies.

• 천문학회보
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• 제35권1호
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• pp.55.2-55.2
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• 2010

We present a photometric and spectroscopic study of the globular clusters (GCs) in the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 4636 in the Virgo cluster. The photometry of the GCs is based on HST/WFPC2 images for the inner region and deep, wide field Washington $CT_1$ CCD images for the outer region. We investigated the color distribution, the radial number density profile, the spatial distribution, and the mean color of the bright blue GCs about the GCs in NGC 4636. We obtained spectra of the GC candidates in NGC 4636 using the Multi-Object Spectroscopy (MOS) mode of Faint Object Camera and Spectrograph (FOCAS) on the SUBARU 8.2m Telescope. We measured the velocities for 105 GCs in NGC 4636. Using the 238 GCs obtained from combining our results with data in the literature, we investigated the kinematics of the GC system of NGC 4636: the rotation, the velocity dispersion, the radial variation, and the orbit. We also investigated the distribution and the radial variation of the metallicities, ages, and alpha-elements of the GCs in NGC 4636 derived using the absorption lines. We compared the GC kinematics of NGC 4636 with those of other six gEs, finding that the kinematic properties of the GCs are diverse among gEs. We found several correlations between the kinematics of the GCs and the global parameters of their host galaxies. Finally we discuss the implication of the results for the formation models of the GC system in gEs, and suggest a mixture scenario for the origin of the GCs in gEs.

• 천문학회보
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• 제41권2호
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• pp.30.2-30.2
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• 2016

M104 (NGC 4594, the Sombrero) is an intriguing disk galaxy classified as an elliptical galaxy nowadays. It hosts a luminous bulge and a massive disk, but it is still mysterious how M104 acquired such peculiar structures. Globular clusters are an useful tracer to investigate the formation history of early-type galaxies. In this study we present a wide field imaging study of the globular clusters in M104. Using wide ($1^{\circ}{\times}1^{\circ}$) and deep ugi images of M104 obtained with the CFHT/MegaCam observations, we detect a large number of globular clusters. The color distribution of these globular clusters shows that there are two subpopulations: a metal-poor system and a metal-rich system. The radial number density of the metal-poor globular clusters shows a long tail reaching R ~ 30' (~ 80 kpc), indicating clearly the existence of a giant metal-poor halo in M104. This result is consistent with the previous studies on the dual halos of massive early-type galaxies. We will discuss implications of these results in relation with the formation history of M104.

• 천문학회보
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• 제43권2호
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• pp.33.2-33.2
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• 2018

Fossil galaxy cluster has a dominant central elliptical galaxy (${\Delta}M12$ >2 in 0.5Rvir) embedded in highly relaxed X-ray halo, which indicates dynamically stable and passively evolved system. These features are expected as a final stage of the cluster evolution in the hierarchical structure formation paradigm. It is known that Abell 2261(A2261 hereafter) is classified as a fossil cluster, but has unusual features such as a high central X-ray entropy (i.e., non-cool core system), which is not expected in normal fossil clusters. We perform a kinematic study with a spectroscopic data of 589 galaxies in the A2261 field. We define cluster member galaxies using the caustic method and discover a new second bright galaxy at ~1.5 Rvir (nearly the splash-back region). It implies the current fossil state of the cluster can break in the near future. In addition, with three independent substructure finding methods, we find that A2261 has many substructures within 3 Mpc from the center of the cluster. These findings support that A2261 is not in a dynamically stable state. We argue that A2261 is in a transitional phase of dynamical evolution of the galaxy cluster and maybe previously defined fossil cluster does not mean the final stage of the evolution of galaxy clusters.

• 천문학회보
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• 제43권1호
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• pp.58.2-58.2
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• 2018

Fossil groups of galaxies have characteristic features of a dominant central elliptical galaxy (${\Delta}M_{12}$ > 2 in $0.5R_{vir}$) embedded in highly relaxed X-ray halo, which indicates dynamically stable and evolved systems. These are thought as a final stage of the evolution of galaxy groups in the hierarchical structure formation scenario. However, the formation and evolution of fossil clusters are still unclear due to lack of detailed studies. Therefore, we perform a kinematic research of a known fossil cluster Abell 2261 (A2261 hereafter) using spectroscopic data of 589 galaxies in the A2261 field. Even though A2261 is known as a fossil cluster, previous studies found several unusual features such as quite high X-ray entropy for a stable cluster, and an elongated shape, which are not expected in standard fossil clusters. Using the caustic method, we identify cluster member galaxies and discover a second bright galaxy (${\Delta}M_{12}=1.68$) at ${\sim}1.5R_{vir}$. The presence of such a bright galaxy can break the current fossil state of cluster in the near future. In addition, with two independent substructure finding methods, we confirm that the previously detected elongated galaxy distribution of the cluster is a real feature. These findings indicate that A2261 is not in a fully stable state, unlike the existing fossil definition diagnostic. We require a more stringent criterion for the fossil definition to represent a genuinely final stage of cluster evolution.

• 천문학회보
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• 제44권2호
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• pp.37.3-37.3
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• 2019

We study the stellar populations of the brightest group galaxies (BGGs) in groups whose halos have different dynamical states, using observational data from the GAMA survey. The two independent indicators to probe the dynamical state of the halo are the magnitude gap between two most luminous galaxies (∆M12) and offset between BGG and the luminosity center (Doffset) of the group. Such indicators complement each other in identifying relaxed and unrelaxed galaxy groups in our samples. We find that the BGGs of unrelaxed groups have significantly bluer NUV-r colours than in relaxed groups. This is also true at fixed sersic index. We find the bluer colours cannot be explained away by differing dust fraction, suggesting there are real differences in their stellar populations. SFRs derived from SED-fitting tend to be higher in unrelaxed systems. This could be partly because there is a greater fraction of BGGs with non-elliptical morphology, but also because unrelaxed systems are expected to have larger numbers of mergers, some of which may bring fuel for star formation. The SED-fitted stellar metallicities of BGGs in unrelaxed systems also tend to be higher, perhaps because the building blocks of the unrelaxed systems were more massive and had more time to enrich themselves. We find that the ∆M12 parameter is the most important parameter behind the observed differences in the relaxed/unrelaxed groups. We also find that groups selected to be unrelaxed using our criteria tend to have higher velocity offsets between the BGG and their group.

• 천문학회보
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• 제40권1호
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• pp.44.2-44.2
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• 2015

운동학적으로 측정된 질량과 측광으로 측정된 질량이 불일치하는 질량 불일치 문제는 현대천문학의 중요한 문제이다. 현재 이러한 질량 불일치에 대한 두 가지 해결책이 제시 되었다. 하나는 현대 표준우주론인 ${\Lambda}CDM$ 패러다임의 핵심 요소인 암흑물질, 다른 하나는 Milgrom에 의해 제시된 수정된 뉴턴역학(Modified Newtonian dynamics: MOND)이다. 두 방법에 대한 많은 연구가 진행되었는데, 최근 연구 결과에 의하면 나선형 은하의 회전속도 윤곽은 MOND와 잘 부합한다. 여기서 우리는 타원형 은하의 속도분산 윤곽을 분석한다. 속도분산 비등방성의 다양한 가정 하에 거의 구형인 2000여개의 SDSS 은하들의 예측되는 속도분산 윤곽을 계산하고, 이들로부터 얻어진 속도분산 기울기 분포를 15개의 $ATLAS^{3D}$ 구형 은하들의 관측된 분포와 비교하였다. 잘 정의된 하나의 interpolation function을 사용하는 MOND 모형에 의해서 단지 관측된 은하의 항성 질량 분포만으로 관측된 속도 분산 윤곽의 기울기 분포가 잘 설명되었다. 이러한 결과는 표준 패러다임의 경우 관측된 속도 분산 윤곽을 설명하기 위해 개별적인 암흑물질의 양과 밀도 윤곽을 필요로 한다는 점에서 주목할 만하다. 향후 타원형 은하들의 개별적 속도분산 윤곽을 정밀하게 분석하는 것이 매우 유용할 것으로 판단된다.