• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.39.1-39.1
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• 2021

In this presentation, study of the energetic astronomical phenomena, active galactic nucleus (AGN) and gravitational wave (GW) source, with time-series observation will be reported. They emit large amounts of energy and play an important role in the history of the Universe. First, intra-night variability of AGNs is studied using Korea Microlensing Telescope Network (KMTNet). Second topic is photometric reverberation mapping which is applied for 11 AGNs with medium-bands and Lee Sang Gak Telescope. Last, three gravitational wave events were followed-up by various optical telescopes. Each topic will be specifically addressed in the presentation.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.179-183
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• 2017

AKARI and the subsequent Herschel Space Observatory have yielded tremendous advancement in our knowledge of the infrared-submillimeter properties of active galaxies and active galactic nuclei, AGN. This short review describes some highlights. Active galaxies are found to do what they are supposed to do: build up their stellar bodies while building up their central black holes.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.49.1-49.1
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• 2008

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.149.1-149.1
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• 2009

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.48.1-48.1
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• 2015

Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are powered by a supermassive black hole with an accretion disk and exhibit prominent broad and narrow emission lines. The unification model AGNs requires the presence of a geometrically and optically thick torus component that hides the broad line region from observers lying in the equatorial direction. The strong far UV radiation characterizing AGN spectra is expected to be scattered inelastically in the torus region to reappear around hydrogen Balmer lines or Paschen lines in the form of broad wings. Adopting a Monte Carlo technique we produce broad wings around $H{\alpha}$, $H{\beta}$ and $Pa{\alpha}$ that are formed through Raman scattering. The widths of the wings are mainly affected by the neutral column density of the torus, and the overall strengths are primarily determined by the covering factor and the column density of the neutral region. It is concluded that deep spectroscopy of AGNs of broad wings around hydrogen emission lines may shed much light on the AGN unification model.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.193-195
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• 2017

We demonstrate the luminosity dependence of the covering factor (CF) of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), based on AKARI mid-infrared all-sky survey catalog. Combining the AKARI with Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) spectroscopic data, we selected 243 galaxies at $9{\mu}m$ and 255 galaxies at $18{\mu}m$. We then identified 64 AGNs at $9{\mu}m$ and 105 AGNs at $18{\mu}m$ by their optical emission lines. Following that, we estimated the CF as the fraction of type 2 AGN in all AGNs. We found that the CF decreased with increasing $18{\mu}m$ luminosity, regardless of the choice of type 2 AGN classification criteria.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.33.2-34
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• 2016

The unification model of active galactic nuclei invokes the presence of a thick molecular torus that hides the broad emission line region from a line of sight toward observers with low latitude. It is expected that the illuminated side of the molecular torus may be photodissociated by strong far UV radiation from the central AGN, forming an H I region with a high neutral column density. We propose that the Rayleigh scattering optical depth of this HI region can be significant for most broad $Ly{\alpha}$ line photons with the Doppler factor not exceeding 104 km s-1. Rayleigh scattered $Ly{\alpha}$ photons can be characterized by strong linear polarization depending on their scattering optical depth. We performed Monte Carlo simulations of polarized radiative transfer of $Ly{\alpha}$ adopting simple scattering geometries relevant to the unification model of AGN. We find that for a low torus the Rayleigh scattered $Ly{\alpha}$ is polarized in the direction parallel to the symmetry axis with the polarization degree dependent on wavelength. In the case of a high torus, the core part of $Ly{\alpha}$ is polarized in the direction perpendicular to the symmetry axis whereas the wing part is parallelly polarized. We conclude that careful spectropolarimetry around $Ly{\alpha}$ can be useful in testing the AGN unification model.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.73.1-73.1
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• 2017

Reverberation mapping is one of the best way to investigate structure and kinematics of broad-line regions around central supermassive black holes of active galactic nuclei (AGN). It is usually used to estimate masses of supermassive black holes. So far, reverberation mapping studies have achieved good results for dozens of AGN by spectroscopic monitoring. However, spectroscopic monitoring is time consuming and high cost. Here, we present result of photometric reverberation mapping with medium-band observation. We monitored five nearby AGN which are already studied, have short time-lag, and show bright H-alpha emission lines. Observation has been performed for ~3 months with ~3 days cadence using three medium-band filters installed in LSGT (Lee Sang Gak Telescope). We found 0.01-0.06 magnitude variations by differential photometry. Also time-lags between continuum light-curves and H-alpha emission line light-curves are calculated using Javelin software. The result shows that our study and previous studies are consistent within uncertainty range. From verification of availability in this study, photometric reverberation mapping could be used as a powerful tool to measure central supermassive black holes for large samples and high-redshift AGN in the future.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.44.2-44.2
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• 2017

We obtained near-infrared spectra of 26 SDSS quasars at 0.7${\sim}10^{{\wedge}{10}}M{\odot}$ to critically examine the systematic effects involved with their mass estimations. We find that active galactic nuclei (AGNs) heavier than $10^{{\wedge}{10}}M{\odot}$ often display double-peaked $H{\alpha}$ emission, extremely broad FeII complex emission around MgII, and highly blueshifted and broadened CIV emission. The weight of this evidence, combined with previous studies, cautions against the use of MBH values based on any emission line with a width over 8000 km/s. Also, the MBH estimations are not positively biased along the presence of ionized narrow line outflows, anisotropic radiation, or the use of line FWHM instead of ${\sigma}$ for our sample, and unbiased with variability, scatter in broad line equivalent width, or obscuration for general type-1 quasars. Removing the systematically uncertain MBH values, ${\sim}10^{{\wedge}{10}}M{\odot}$ BHs in 1${\sim}10^{{\wedge}{9.5}}M{\odot}$ BHs, although current observations support they are intrinsically most massive, and overmassive to the host's bulge mass.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.48 no.5
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• pp.277-284
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• 2015

We present our efforts for extending the simultaneous multi-frequency receiver system of the Korean Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) Network (KVN) to global baselines in order to measure the frequency-dependent position shifts in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) jets, the so called core shift effect, with an unprecedented accuracy (a few micro-arcseconds). Millimeter VLBI observations with simultaneous multi-frequency receiver systems, like those of the KVN, enable us to explore the innermost regions of AGN and high precision astrometry. Such a system is capable of locating the frequency dependent opacity changes accurately. We have conducted the feasibility test-observations with the interested partners by implementing the KVN-compatible systems. Here we describe the science case for measuring the core shift effect in the AGN jet and report progress and future plans on extending the simultaneous multi-frequency system to global baselines.