• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.59.1-59.1
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• 2011

I present an analysis of the long-term evolution of the fluxes of six active galactic nuclei (AGN) - 0923+392, 3C 111, 3C 273, 3C 345, 3C 454.3, and 3C 84 - in the frequency range 80 - 267 GHz using archival calibration data of the IRAM Plateau de Bure Interferometer. Our dataset spans a long timeline of ~14 years with 974 - 3027 flux measurements per source. We find strong (factors ~2-8) flux variability on timescales of years for all sources. The flux density distributions of five out of six sources show clear signatures of bi- or even multimodality. Our sources show mostly steep (alpha~0.5-1), variable spectral indices that indicate outflow dominated emission; the variability is most probably due to optical depth variations. The power spectra globally correspond to red-noise spectra with five sources being located between the cases of white and flicker noise and one source (3C 111) being closer to the case of random walk noise. For three sources the low-frequency ends of their power spectra appear to be upscaled in spectral power by factors ~2-3 with respect to the overall powerlaws. We conclude that the source emission cannot be described by uniform stochastic emission processes; instead, a distinction of "quiescent" and (maybe multiple) "flare" states of the source emission appears to be necessary.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.177-187
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• 2003

Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are distant, powerful sources of radiation over the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to gamma-rays. There is much evidence that they are driven by gravitational accretion of stars, dust, and gas, onto central massive black holes (MBHs) imprisoning anywhere from $\~$1 to $\~$10,000 million solar masses; such objects may naturally form in the centers of galaxies during their normal dynamical evolution. A small fraction of AGNs, of the radio-loud type (RLAGNs), are somehow able to generate powerful synchrotron-emitting structures (cores, jets, lobes) with sizes ranging from pc to Mpc. A brief summary of AGN observations and theories is given, with an emphasis on RLAGNs. Preliminary results from the imaging of 10000 extragalactic radio sources observed in the MITVLA snapshot survey, and from a new analytic theory of the time-variable power output from Kerr black hole magnetospheres, are presented. To better understand the complex physical processes within the central engines of AGNs, it is important to confront the observations with theories, from the viewpoint of analyzing the time-variable behaviours of AGNs - which have been recorded over both 'short' human ($10^0-10^9\;s$) and 'long' cosmic ($10^{13} - 10^{17}\;s$) timescales. Some key ingredients of a basic mathematical formalism are outlined, which may help in building detailed Monte-Carlo models of evolving AGN populations; such numerical calculations should be potentially important tools for useful interpretation of the large amounts of statistical data now publicly available for both AGNs and RLAGNs.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.457-459
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• 2015

Observations show that the accretion flows in low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (LLAGNs) probably have a two-component structure with an inner hot, optically thin, advection dominated accretion flow (ADAF) and an outer truncated cool, optically thick accretion disk. As shown by Taam et al. (2012), within the framework of the disk evaporation model, the truncation radius as a function of mass accretion rate is strongly affected by including the magnetic field. We define the parameter ${\beta}$ as $p_m=B^2/8{\pi}=(1-{\beta})p_{tot}$, (where $p_{tot}=p_{gas}+p_m$, $p_{gas}$ is gas pressure and $p_m$ is magnetic pressure) to describe the strength of the magnetic field in accretion flows. It is found that an increase of the magnetic field (decreasing the value of ${\beta}$) results in a smaller truncation radius for the accretion disk. We calculate the emergent spectrum of an inner ADAF + an outer truncated accretion disk around a supermassive black hole by considering the effects of the magnetic field on the truncation radius of the accretion disk. By comparing with observations, we found that a weaker magnetic field (corresponding to a bigger value of ${\beta}$) is required to match the observed correlation between $L_{2-10keV}/L_{Edd}$ and the bolometric correction $k_{2-10keV}$, which is consistent with the physics of the accretion flow with a low mass accretion rate around a black hole.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.31-40
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• 2019

A long standing problem in the study of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) is that the observed VLBI core is in fact a blending of the actual AGN core (classically defined by the ${\tau}=1$ surface) and the upstream regions of the jet or optically thin flows. This blending may cause some biases in the observables of the core, such as its flux density, size or brightness temperature, which may lead to misleading interpretation of the derived quantities and physics. We study the effects of such blending under the view of the Korean VLBI Network (KVN) for a sample of AGNs at 43 GHz by comparing their observed properties with observations obtained using the Very Large Baseline Array (VLBA). Our results suggest that the observed core sizes are a factor ~ 11 larger than these of VLBA, which is similar to the factor expected by considering the different resolutions of the two facilities. We suggest the use of this factor to consider blending effects in KVN measurements. Other parameters, such as flux density or brightness temperature, seem to possess a more complicated dependence.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.69.2-69.2
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• 2021

We present the discovery of rare active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in nearby (z<0.05) compact elliptical galaxies (cEs) located in isolated environments. Using spectroscopic data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 12, four AGNs were identified based on the optical emission-line diagnostic diagram. SDSS optical spectra of AGNs show the presence of distinct narrow-line emissions. Utilizing the black hole (BH) mass-stellar velocity dispersion scaling relation and the correlation between the narrow L([OIII])/L(Hβ) line ratio and the width of the broad Hα emission line, we estimated the BH masses of the cEs to be in the range of 7×10⁵-8×10⁷ solar mass. The observed surface brightness profiles of the cEs were fitted with a double Sérsic function using the Dark Energy Camera Legacy Survey r-band imaging data. Assuming the inner component as the bulge, the K-band bulge luminosity was also estimated from the corresponding Two Micron All Sky Survey images. We found that our cEs follow the observed BH mass-stellar velocity dispersion and BH mass-bulge luminosity scaling relations, albeit there was a large uncertainty in the derived BH mass of one cE. In view of the observational properties of BHs and those of the stellar populations of cEs, we discuss the proposition that cEs in isolated environments are bona fide low-mass early-type galaxies (i.e., a nature origin).

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.66.1-66.1
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• 2021

Extinction curves observed toward individual Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) usually show a steep rise toward Far-Ultraviolet (FUV) wavelengths and can be described by the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC)-like dust model. This feature suggests the dominance of small dust grains of size a < 0.1 ㎛ in the local environment of AGN, but the origin of such small grains is unclear. In this paper, we aim to explain this observed feature by applying the RAdiative Torque Disruption (RATD) to model the extinction of AGN radiation from FUV to Mid-Infrared (MIR) wavelengths. We find that in the intense radiation field of AGN, large composite grains of size a > 0.1 ㎛ are significantly disrupted to smaller sizes by RATD up to dRATD > 100 pc in the polar direction and dRATD ~ 10 pc in the torus region. Consequently, optical-MIR extinction decreases, whereas FUV-near-Ultraviolet extinction increases, producing a steep far-UV rise extinction curve. The resulting total-to selective visual extinction ratio thus significantly drops to RV < 3.1 with decreasing distances to AGN center due to the enhancement of small grains. The dependence of RV with the efficiency of RATD will help us to study the dust properties in the AGN environment via photometric observations. In addition, we suggest that the combination of the strength between RATD and other dust destruction mechanisms that are responsible for destroying very small grains of a <0.05 ㎛ is the key for explaining the dichotomy observed "SMC" and "gray" extinction curve toward many AGN.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.36.2-36.2
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• 2019

Fe II emission is a prominent and ubiquitous feature in the spectra of broad-line Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) by producing a pseudo-continuum from UV to optical with complex and strong blends of the numerous emission lines themselves, other emission lines, and continuum. Since theoretical modeling of such intricate Fe II emission is very difficult and still far from able to reproduce observed data in detail, an empirical iron emission template, derived from observations of a narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy, is an essential and practical tool to obtain accurate measurements of all the emission lines and continuum in AGN spectra. However, the existing iron templates, based on the single prototypical strong Fe II emitter I Zw 1, are suffering from inadequate S/N and non-simultaneous, inconsistent data with limited wavelength coverage, which consequently limit the accuracy of all the spectral measurements. To overcome the limitations and construct an improved iron template with wide spectral coverage, high-quality UV and optical spectra for the new and better identified template galaxy, Mrk 493, were successfully obtained from our HST STIS program (GO-14744). We will show the preliminary results for multicomponent spectral decomposition of the data and template construction with application tests to various AGN spectra and comparison with previous templates.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.569-578
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• 2006

The distribution and kinematic information of the continuum, $H{\alpha},\;H{\beta}$, [O III], & [N II] images based on spectroscopic data secured with the OASIS at the Hawaii CFHT 3.6m telescope have been analyzed to study the physical characteristics of NGC 5728. The three bright regions-northwestern knot, southeastern knot, and the nucleus-exist within a $15"{\times}12"$ sky area which seem to indicate gas flows along the northwestern or western direction from the nucleus. We find that the center of a 10" diameter ring is at the northwestern knot, not at the galactic center. To further analyze the formation mechanism of such a ring, the kinematics of the nucleus and knot have been studied and the central structure of the Active Galactic Nuclei has been investigated by comparing various emission images.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.265-270
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• 2012

Many observations have found evidence of the presence of a large number of heavily obscured Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs). However, the nature of this population is only poorly understood because heavy obscuration by dust prevents one from finding them at optical wavelengths. Mid-infrared AGN searches can overcome this obstacle by penetrating through dust and by detecting direct emission from the dust torus. Thus, we can identify most of the AGN population, including type-2 and buried AGNs. Using the AKARI mid-infrared all-sky survey, we performed an AGN search in the nearby universe. Utilizing the 2MASS photometry, we selected mid-infrared-excess sources and carried out near-infrared spectroscopic observations in the AKARI Phase 3. During these follow-up observations, we have found three galaxies that show strong near-infrared red continuum from hot dust with a temperature of about 500 K, but do not show any AGN features in other wavelengths. The most suitable explanation of near-infrared continuum is the presence of central AGNs. Therefore, we conclude that they are AGNs obscured by dust. We performed X-ray observations of the two galaxies with SUZAKU. No detections in the 0.4-10 keV suggest that the column density may be much higher than $N_H=10^{23.5}cm^{-2}$. Comparing the masses of the host galaxies with those of the SDSS AGNs, we find that the host galaxies of the dusty AGNs discovered with AKARI are less massive populations than those of optically selected AGNs.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.163-167
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• 2017

Utilizing a unique capability of AKARI that allows deep spectroscopy at $2.5-5.0{\mu}m$, we performed a spectroscopy study of more than 200 quasars through one of the AKARI mission programs, QSONG (Quasar Spectroscopic Observation with NIR Grism). QSONG targeted 155 high redshift (3.3 < z < 6.42) quasars and 90 low redshift active galactic nuclei (0.002 < z < 0.48). In order to provide black hole mass estimates based on the rest-frame optical spectra, the high redshift part of QSONG is designed to detect the $H{\alpha}$ line and the rest-frame optical spectra of quasars at z > 3.3. The low redshift part of QSONG is geared to uncover the rest-frame $2.5-5.0{\mu}m$ spectral features of active galactic nuclei to gain useful information such as the dust-extinction-free black hole mass estimators based on the Brackett lines and the temperatures of the hot dust torus. We outline the program strategy, and present some of the scientific highlights from QSONG, including the detection of the $H{\alpha}$ line from a quasar at z > 4.5 which indicates a rigorous growth of black holes in the early universe, and the $Br{\beta}$-based black hole mass estimators and the hot dust temperatures (~ 1100 K) of low redshift AGNs.