• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.149-151
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• 2005

We have studied the environmental effect on optical-NIR color gradients of 273 nearby elliptical galaxies. Color gradient is a good tool to study the evolutionary history of elliptical galaxies, since the steepness of the color gradient reflects merging history of early types. When an elliptical galaxy goes through many merging events, the color gradient can be get less steep or reversed due to mixing of stars. One simple way to measure color gradient is to compare half-light radii in different bands. We have compared the optical and near infrared half-light radii of 273 early-type galaxies from Pahre (1999). Not surprisingly, we find that $r_e(V)s$ (half-light radii measured in V-band) are in general larger than $r_e(K)s$ (half-light radii measured in K-band). However, when divided into different environments, we find that elliptical galaxies in the denser environment have gentler color gradients than those in the less dense environment. Our finding suggests that elliptical galaxies in the dense environment have undergone many merging events and the mixing of stars through the merging have created the gentle color gradients.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.47.1-47.1
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• 2013

We present structural parameters of galaxies in the Extended Viro Cluster Catalog (EVCC), new catalog of galaxies in the Viro cluster using homogeneous Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Date Release 7 (DR7) data. The EVCC covers more extended region of the Viro cluster than of the Virgo Cluster Catalog (VCC) and presents updated morphologies of galaxies using multi-band images and spectral features. We obtain the surface brightness profiles of galaxies using ellipse task in IRAF. Based on the analysis of surface brightness profile we construct a catalog of various structural parameters of galaxies, i.e. central surface brightness, effective radius, sersic index, effective surface brightness, and mean effective surface brightness. Taking advantage of these structural parameters in various parameter spaces, we refine criteria of dividing giant elliptical and dwarf elliptical galaxies. In addition, we found that bulge dominated galaxies have larger sersic index and brighter central surface brightness than disk dominated galaxies. At fixed magnitude, dwarf elliptical galaxies dwarf lenticular galaxies, and dwarf irregular low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies show larger effective radii than giant elliptical galaxies, giant 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.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.375-379
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• 2015

Planetary nebula in elliptical galaxies pose a problem in dark matter theory. Using data from the Planetary Nebula Spectrograph (PN. S), Romanowsky et al. (2003) reported that less dark matter than expected was found within 5 to 6 effective radii of three elliptical galaxies. We attempt to explain similar observations of elliptical galaxies with MOdified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND). We collect 16 elliptical galaxies with planetary nebulae from the public web data of PN. S. We investigate the dynamical behavior by analyzing the line-of-sight velocity dispersion in the framework of MOND.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.53.2-53.2
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• 2018

We present newly discovered dwarf galaxy candidates in deep and wide-field images of NGC 1291 obtained with KMTNet. Through a visual inspection, we find ~ 13 candidates, for which central surface brightness ranges from ${\mu}_{0,R}{\sim}22.5$ to $26.5mag\;arcsec^{-1}$. Adopting the distance to NGC 1291, the candidate dwarfs are brighter than $M_R=-12.5mag$ and their effective radii range from 350 pc to 1.4 kpc. Structural and photometric properties of dwarf candidates near NGC 1291 appears to be consistent with those of ordinary dwarf galaxies in nearby galaxies. We conduct the imaging simulation in order to find an optimal way to detect dwarf galaxies in KMTNet images and to test the completeness of our detection algorithm. We plan to apply this method to deep KMTNet images of other nearby galaxies obtained through KMTNet Nearby Galaxy Survey (KNGS).

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.80.2-80.2
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• 2019

We present newly discovered dwarf galaxy candidates in deep wide-field images of NGC 1291 obtained with KMTNet. We initially identify 20 dwarf galaxy candidates through visual inspection. 13 out of 20 appears to be high priority candidates, according to their central surface brightness (${\mu}_{0,R}{\sim}22.5$ to $26.5mag\;arcsec^{-2}$) and effective radii (350 pc to 1 kpc). Structural and photometric properties of dwarf candidates appear to be consistent with those of ordinary dwarf galaxies in nearby groups and clusters. Using imaging simulations, we demonstrate that our imaging data is complete up to $26mag\;arcsec^{-2}$ with > 70% of the completeness rate. In order to find an optimal way to automate detecting dwarf galaxies in our dataset, we test detection methods by varying parameters in SExtractor. We find that the detection efficiency from the automated method is relatively low and the contamination due to the artifacts is non-negligible. Therefore, it can be only applicable for pre-selection. We plan to conduct the same analysis for deep images of other nearby galaxies obtained through KMTNet Nearby Galaxy Survey (KNGS).

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.30.2-31
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• 2017

Compact elliptical (cE) galaxies are in a rare class of stellar systems characterized by high stellar densities, small sizes, high velocity dispersion, and high metallicity corresponding to elliptical galaxies. cE galaxies have been observed around massive galaxies, so they could be formed under strong influences of tidal stripping and truncation. However, the recent discovery of isolated cE galaxies requires the need of new formation scenarios. We aim at finding cE galaxies in various environments using SDSS DR12, and studying stellar population of cEs as function of environments. Based on the typical properties of cE galaxies, we selected cE candidates by restricting that low-luminosity Mg > 19.5 mag, small sizes Re < 700 pc, and high velocity dispersions ${\sigma}$ > $60kms^{-1}$. Since effect radii of cE candidates are mostly smaller than the seeing size of SDSS photometry, we calculated the effective radius by fitting a Sersic profile. In addition, we assumed that host galaxies have brightness with Mr < -21 mag, and an environmental parameter is computed as distances between cE galaxies and host-galaxies. We found 112 cE galaxies at z < 0.05, which have high sersic indices (mean value is 5.2) similar to the typical massive elliptical galaxies. Mgb values of cE galaxies increase as the distances from the host galaxies decrease. Especially, for cEs close to the host galaxies (NcE; $D_{host}$ < 300 pc), the Mgb values are similar to those of massive elliptical galaxies, which is consistent with the previous studies. On the other hand, cE galaxies distant from the host galaxies (DcE; Dhost >300 pc) have lower Mgb values than the conventional cE. The Mgb values follow the ${\sigma}$-Mgb relation of elliptical galaxies, and are connected to its faint end. This can be explained as a result of different merger histories for differing environments. For example, NcE galaxies are formed by tidal stripping by massive galaxies as suggested by previous studies, but DcE galaxies could be linked with high-redshift spheroids (e.g. red nuggets) which have not evolved into present-day elliptical galaxies because of the environmental influences.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.53.2-53.2
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• 2016

We present surface photometry results of the dwarf galaxies in the nearby NGC 2784 galaxy group. We newly detected about 30 dwarf galaxy candidates at about 30 square degree area around the nearby NGC 2784 galaxy (D~10 Mpc and MV=-20.5) applying a visual inspection technique on the wide-field optical images taken by the KMTNet Supernova Program (KSP). Surface brightnesses of the objects estimated from the stacked-images with total exposure time of about 6 hours reach approximately ${\mu}V$ ~28.5 mag/arcsec2 around $3{\sigma}$ above sky background. The central surface brightness and the total absolute magnitude for the faintest candidate dwarf galaxy among about 40 galaxies including the previously known ones is ${\mu}0$, V~26.1 mag/arcsec2 and MV~-9.5 mag, respectively. The effective radii of the candidates are larger than ~200 pc. The radial number density of the dwarf galaxy candidates from the center of NGC 2784 is decreasing. The mean color (<(B-V)0>~0.7) and $S{\acute{e}}rsic$ structure parameters of the dwarfs, assuming them to be located in the NGC 2784 group, are well consistent with those of the dwarf galaxies in other groups (e.g. M83 group and the Local Group (LG)). The faint-end slope of the cumulative luminosity function (CLF) of the galaxies in NGC 2784 group is about ${\alpha}=-1.2$, which is steeper than that of the LG galaxies, but is much flatter than that of the CLF expected by a ${\Lambda}CDM$ model.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.38.3-38.3
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• 2019

We investigate the stellar population properties of nine passive spiral galaxies in the CALIFA survey. They have NUV-r > 5 and no/weak nebular emission lines in their spectra. They lie in the redshift range of 0.001 < z < 0.021 and have stellar mass range of 10.2 < ${\log}(M{\star}/M{\odot})$ < 10.8. We analyze the stellar populations out to two effective radius, using the best-fitting model to the measured absorption line-strength indices in the Lick/IDS system. We compare the passive spirals with S0s selected in the same mass range. S0s cover a wide range in age, metallicity, and [${\alpha}/Fe$], and stellar populations of the passive spirals are encompassed in the spread of the S0 properties. However, the distribution of passive spirals are skewed toward higher values of metallicity, lower [${\alpha}/Fe$], and younger ages at all radii. These results show that passive spirals are possibly related to S0s in their stellar populations. We infer that the diversity in the stellar populations of S0s may result from different evolutionary pathways of S0 formation, and passive spirals may be one of the possible channels.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.73.2-74
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• 2015

The gas cloud G2 falling toward Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, is supposed to provide valuable information on the physics of accretion flows and the environment of the black hole. We observed Sgr A* with four European stations of the Global Millimeter Very Long Baseline Interferometry Array (GMVA) at 86 GHz on 1 October 2013 when parts of G2 had already passed the pericenter. We searched for possible transient asymmetric structure - such as jets or winds from hot accretion flows - around Sgr A* caused by accretion of material from G2. The interferometric closure phases (which are zero if the spatial brightness distribution of the target is symmetric, and deviate from zero otherwise) remained zero within errors during the observation time. We thus conclude that Sgr A* did not show significant asymmetric (in the observer frame) outflows in late 2013. Using simulations, we constrain the size of the outflows that we could have missed to ${\approx}2.5$ mas along the major axis, ${\approx}0.4$ mas along the minor axis of the beam, corresponding to approximately 232 and 35 Schwarzschild radii, respectively; we thus probe spatial scales on which the jets of radio galaxies are suspected to convert magnetic into kinetic energy. As probably less than 0.2 Jy of the flux from Sgr A* can be attributed to accretion from G2, one finds an effective accretion rate ${\eta}M{\leq}1.5{\times}10^9kg/s{\approx}7.7{\times}10^{-9}M_{earth}/yr$ for material from G2. Exploiting the kinetic jet power-accretion power relation of radio galaxies, one finds that the rate of accretion of matter that ends up in jets is limited to $M{\leq}10^{17}kg/s{\approx}0.5M_{Earth}/yr$ less than about 20% of the mass of G2. Accordingly, G2 appears to be largely stable against loss of angular momentum and subsequent (partial) accretion at least on time scales ${\leq}1$ year.