• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.49.1-49.1
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• 2012

Recently it is found that the globular clusters are not only bound in their host galaxies, but also are wandering between galaxies in Virgo and Coma clusters. The cluster-wide distribution of these intracluster globular clusters (IGCs) suggests that IGCs are an important probe to understand hierarchical structure formation. We present a survey of IGCs in Virgo cluster using HST archive images for four HST/ACS fields located from about 9 arcmin to 40 acrmin from the cluster center. We find ten new IGCs and confirm four previously known IGCs. The number density of IGCs decreases as the distance from the cluster center increases. We derive integrated photometry of IGCs. We also obtain photometry of resolved stars in the outer region of each cluster. These IGCs are fainter than $M_V{\approx}-9.5$ and mostly blue in (V-I) color. showing that they are mostly metal poor. The locations of red giant branch stars of IGCs in color-magnitude diagrams also show that they are meal-poor. We discuss the implications of these results.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.39.3-39.3
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• 2016

About one tenth of dwarf elliptical galaxies found in the Virgo cluster have a disk component, and some of them even possess substructures such as bars, lens, and spiral arms. We use N-body simulations to study the formation of these non-axisymmetric features in disky dwarf elliptical galaxies. By mimicking VCC 856, a bulgeless dwarf galaxy with embedded faint spiral arms, we construct 11 sets of initial conditions with slight dynamical variations based on observational data. Our standard model starts slowly to form a bar at ~3 Gyr and then undergoes buckling instability that temporarily weakens the bar although the bar strength continues to grow afterward. We find 9 of our models are unstable to bar formation and undergo buckling instability. This suggests that disky dwarf elliptical galaxies are intrinsically unstable to form bars, accounting for a population of barred dwarf galaxies in the outskirts of the Virgo cluster. To understand the origin of the faint grand-design spiral arms, we additionally construct 6 sets of models that undergo tidal interactions with their neighbors. We find that faint spiral arms consistent with observations develop when tidal forcing is relatively weak although strong encounter still results in bar formation. We discuss our results in light of the dynamical evolution of dwarf elliptical galaxies including mergers.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.49.3-50
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• 2015

Early-type dwarf galaxy (ETDG), 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 ETDGs supports the scenario of late-type galaxy infall and subsequent transformation into red, quiescent ETDGs. While several transformation mechanisms for these ETDGs with blue core within cluster environment have been proposed, all these processes are able to explain only some of the observational properties of ETDGs such as stellar populations and structural parameters. In this context, internal kinematic properties of blue-cored ETDGs provide the most crucial evidence to discriminate different processes for the formation of these galaxies. We present a kinematic analysis of two blue-cored ETDGs in the Virgo cluster based on long-slit data obtained from Gemini Multi-Object Spectrographs (GMOS) observations. We find that the observed galaxies show kinematically decoupled sub-components in the velocity profile such as discontinuity or counter-rotating component. We discuss possible scenarios of formation of these transitional galaxies.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.62.1-62.1
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• 2011

Warp phenomenon seems to be ubiquitous among spiral galaxies, and a a number of mechanisms have been suggested as the origin including cosmic infall and tidal interactions. In this work, we compare warp characteristics of cluster spirals and the ones in the field in order to investigate the influence of environment on warping, in particular of gas disks. We make use of a tilted-ring modeling (TRM) method to VLA HI (21cm) data cubes of carefully selected 20 spiral galaxies in the Virgo cluster. The TRM allows us to probe kinematics, e.g., inclination, position angle, and velocity dispersion of HI disks. We compare the properties of each tilted-ring component to mean properties based on optical images. In this contribution, we present preliminary yet important findings on the warp characteristics of spiral galaxies in dense environment, and discuss possible origins of those kinematical structures.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.33.1-33.1
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• 2013

Galaxies undergo various processes in the cluster environment, which could affect their evolution. In particular, ram pressure due to intracluster medium (ICM) can effectively remove HI gas, which is a relatively diffuse form of interstellar medium (ISM). On the other hand, molecular gas is not expected to get easily stripped as atomic gas since it is denser and sitting well within the stellar disk in a deeper potential well. However, cluster galaxies are found to be redder and more passive in star formation activity compared to their field counterpart. This implies that molecular gas may also get affected somehow in dense environments. In this work, we investigate molecular gas properties of a sample of galaxies undergoing HI stripping due to the ICM. We present the 12/13 CO (2-1) data of four spiral galaxies in the Virgo cluster at different ram pressure stripping stages, obtained using the Sub Millimeter Array (SMA). CO morphology of the sample appears to be highly asymmetric and disturbed. Using the ratio of different lines, we probe the molecular gas temperature in different regions. We find higher gas temperature than the range normally found among field galaxies. We discuss how these distinct molecular gas properties may affect star formation and hence the evolution of the cluster galaxy population.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.69.2-69.2
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• 2014

We present space-based near-IR (NIR) and optical photometry of globular clusters (GCs) of 16 early-type galaxies in the Fornax and Virgo Clusters. The NIR imaging data for the nearby galaxies was acquired with the IR Channel of the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3/IR) in the F110W ($J_{110}$) and F160W ($H_{160}$) bandpasses. We introduce the full sample of our WFC3/IR program, describe data reductions and photometric measurements including GC candidate selection criteria, and then show selected GCs' color-magnitude diagrams. The tilted features in the diagrams related to the morphological types of host galaxies are discussed in the context of galaxy formation and evolution histories. Combining F475W ($g_{475}$) and F850LP ($z_{850}$) data taken from the Advanced Camera for Surveys Virgo and Fornax Cluster Surveys with our NIR data, we investigate the bimodality in optical-NIR color distribution and the nonlinear feature of the optical-NIR color relation as a function of optical color for these extragalactic GC systems.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.51.1-51.1
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• 2014

The Virgo cluster, the nearest galaxy cluster, is dynamically young, hosting numerous globular clusters in galaxies as well as intracluster globular clusters (IGCs). We obtained spectra of globular cluster candidates in the core region of the Virgo cluster using Hectospec at MMT to study the kinematics of the globular clusters. The targets are located at a large range (50 kpc < d < 500 kpc) from M87, the most massive galaxy in Virgo. We distinguish the genuine globular cluster population in the targets by inspecting their spectral features and radial velocities. As a result, a significant number of IGCs are found. We present preliminary results of the kinematics of globular clusters in the Virgo core region.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.62.2-62.2
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• 2020

Globular clusters(GCs) are found not only around galaxies (galaxy GCs), but also between galaxies in galaxy clusters (intracluster GCs; ICGCs). The ICGCs, which are not bound to any of cluster member galaxies, are governed by the galaxy clutster potential. ICGCs have been detected in the wide field of Virgo and Fornax galaxy clusters. However, previous surveys covered only a small fraction of Coma and Perseus. In this study we present a wide field survey of these two galaxy clusters, using Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam(HSC) archival images, covering a circular field with diameter of ~1.8 deg. We select ICGC candidates, by masking the images of bright galaxies and choosing point sources in the remaining area. We find thousands of ICGCs in each galaxy cluster. These ICGCs show a bimodal color distribution, which is dominated by blue GCs. We investigate spatial distributions and radial number density profiles of the blue and red ICGCs in each galaxy cluster. Implications of the results will be discussed.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.47.2-47.2
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• 2013

We present ultraviolet (UV) color-magnitude relations (CMRs) of early-type dwarf galaxies in the Viro cluster, combining Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) UV data with SDSS optical data, based on the Extended Virgo Cluster catalog (EVCC). We find that dwarf lenticular galaxies (dS0s) show a surprisingly distinct and tight locus separated from that of ordinary 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. 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 by models with relatively long delayed star formation. The dS0s are most likely transitional objects at the stage of subsequent transformation of late-type progenitors to ordinary red dEs in the cluster environment. 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. In any case UV photometry provides a powerful teel to disentangle the diverse subpopulations of early-type dwarf galaxies and uncover their evolutionary histories. lenticular galaxies, and irregular high surface brightness (HSB) galaxies, respectively. Dwarf elliptical galaxies and dwarf irregular LSB galaxies occupy the similar structural parameter spaces. We suggest that giant elliptical galaxies and dwarf elliptical galaxies may have different origin.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.63.2-63.2
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• 2016

One of the well-known problems in the lambda cold dark matter (${\Lambda}CDM$) models is a missing satellite problem. The slope of the mass function of low mass galaxies predicted by ${\Lambda}CDM$ models is much steeper than that based on the luminosity function of dwarf galaxies in the local universe. This implies that the model prediction is an overestimate of low mass galaxies, or that the current census of dwarf galaxies in the local universe may be an underestimate of dwarf galaxies. Previous studies of galaxy luminosity functions to address this problem are based mostly on the sample of galaxies brighter than Mv ~ -10 in the nearby galaxies. In this study we try to search for ultra-faint galaxies (UFDs), which are much fainter than those in the previous studies. We use multi-field HST ACS images of M60 in the archive. M60 is a giant elliptical galaxy located in the east part of the Virgo cluster, and hosts a large population of globular clusters and UCDs. Little is known about the dwarf galaxies in this galaxy. UFDs are much fainter, much smaller, and have lower surface brightness than normal dwarf galaxies so HST images of massive galaxies are an ideal resource. We present preliminary results of this search.