• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.44.3-44.3
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• 2019

Massive stars, supernovae, and kilonovae are among the most luminous radiation sources in the universe. Observations usually show near- to mid-infrared (NIR-MIR, 1-5~micron) emission excess from H II regions around young massive star clusters (YMSCs) and anomalous dust extinction and polarization towards Type Ia supernova (SNe Ia). The popular explanation for such NIR-MIR excess and unusual dust properties is the predominance of small grains (size a<0.05micron) relative to large grains (a>0.1micron) in the local environment of these strong radiation sources. The question of why small grains are predominant in these environments remains a mystery. Here we report a new mechanism of dust destruction based on centrifugal stress within extremely fast rotating grains spun-up by radiative torques, namely the RAdiative Torque Disruption (RATD) mechanism, which can resolve this question. We find that RATD can destroy large grains located within a distance of ~ 1 pc from a massive star of luminosity L~ 10^4L_sun and a supernova. This increases the abundance of small grains relative to large grains and successfully reproduces the observed NIR-MIR excess and anomalous dust extinction/polarization. We show that small grains produced by RATD can also explain the steep far-UV rise in extinction curves toward starburst and high redshift galaxies, as well as the decrease of the escape fraction of Ly-alpha photons observed from HII regions surrounding YMSCs.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.55.2-56
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• 2021

The progenitor of Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) is mainly believed to be a close binary system of acarbon-oxygen white dwarf (CO WD) and non-degenerate companion (single degenerate) or another WD (double degenerate). However, it is unclear which system is more prevalent. Here, we present a high cadence optical/Near-IR light curve of normal but slightly faint type Ia SN 2019ein from IMSNG project. We fit the early light curve (t <+8.3 days from the first detection) with various models to find the shock-heated cooling emission from SN ejecta-companion interaction. No significant shock-heated cooling emission is found, from which we constrain the progenitor star size as the following. The upper limit (R_upper,*) of the companion size in R-band is ~0.2R_⊙ when forcing the first light time (t_fl) to have one value and ~0.9R_⊙ when using the mean value of tfl from the fitting in each band. Assuming the source of the I-band curve is almost powered from the radioactive decay, we obtained R_upper,*~1.2R_⊙. The early B-V color curve is in agreement with the model color curve of the 2M_⊙ main sequence companion. These results allow us to at least rule out large stars like red giants as a companion star of the binary progenitor system of this supernova. B-R and V-R color do not show any significant signs of a red bump, which shows a thin helium shell (MHe<0.1M_⊙) for the sub-Mch WD (double detonation model). In addition, we estimated the distance to NGC 5353 as 37.098±0.028Mpc.

• 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.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.64.1-64.1
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• 2018

SNe light curves have been used to understand the expansion history of the universe, and a lot of efforts have gone into understanding the overall shape of the radioactively powered light curve. However, we still have little direct observational evidence for the theorized SN progenitor systems. Recent studies suggest that the light curve of a supernova shortly after its explosion (< 1 day) contains valuable information about its progenitor system and can be used to set a limit on the progenitor size, R*. In order to catch the early light curve of SNe explosion and understand SNe progenitors, we are performing a ~8hr interval monitoring survey of nearby galaxies (d < 50 Mpc) with 1-m class telescopes around the world. Through this survey, we expect to catch the very early precursor emission as faint as R=21 mag (~0.1 Rsun for the progenitor). In this poster, we outline this project, and present a few scientific highlights, such as the early light curve of SN 2015F in NGC 2442.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.219-220
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• 2012

We present the results of far-infrared spectroscopic observations of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) with FIS-FTS. We covered a large area across the LMC, including 30 Doradus (30 Dor) and N44 star-forming regions, by 191 pointings in total. As a result, we detect the [OIII] and [CII] line emission as well as far-infrared dust continuum emission throughout the LMC. We find that the [OIII] emission is widely distributed around 30 Dor. The observed size of the distribution is too large to be explained by massive stars in 30 Dor, which are assumed to be enshrouded by clouds with the constant gas density estimated from the [OIII] line intensities. Therefore the surrounding structure is likely to be highly clumpy. We also find a global correlation between the [OIII] and the far-infrared continuum emission, suggesting that the gas and dust are well mixed in the highly-ionized region where the dust survives in clumpy dense clouds shielded from energetic photons. Furthermore we find that the ratios of [CII]/CO are as high as 110,000 in 30 Dor, and 45,000 even on average, while they are typically 6,000 for star-forming regions in our Galaxy. The unusually high [CII]/CO is also consistent with the picture of clumpy small dense clouds.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.217-234
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• 2011

We present two large cosmological N-body simulations, called Horizon Run 2 (HR2) and Horizon Run 3 (HR3), made using $6000^3$ = 216 billions and $7210^3$ = 374 billion particles, spanning a volume of $(7.200\;h^{-1}Gpc)^3$ and $(10.815\;h^{-1}Gpc)^3$, respectively. These simulations improve on our previous Horizon Run 1 (HR1) up to a factor of 4.4 in volume, and range from 2600 to over 8800 times the volume of the Millennium Run. In addition, they achieve a considerably finer mass resolution, down to $1.25{\times}10^{11}h^{-1}M_{\odot}$, allowing to resolve galaxy-size halos with mean particle separations of $1.2h^{-1}$Mpc and $1.5h^{-1}$Mpc, respectively. We have measured the power spectrum, correlation function, mass function and basic halo properties with percent level accuracy, and verified that they correctly reproduce the CDM theoretical expectations, in excellent agreement with linear perturbation theory. Our unprecedentedly large-volume N-body simulations can be used for a variety of studies in cosmology and astrophysics, ranging from large-scale structure topology, baryon acoustic oscillations, dark energy and the characterization of the expansion history of the Universe, till galaxy formation science - in connection with the new SDSS-III. To this end, we made a total of 35 all-sky mock surveys along the past light cone out to z = 0.7 (8 from the HR2 and 27 from the HR3), to simulate the BOSS geometry. The simulations and mock surveys are already publicly available at http://astro.kias.re.kr/Horizon-Run23/.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.28.1-28.1
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• 2017

To investigate AGN outflows as a tracer of AGN feedback on the host galaxies, we perform integral-field spectroscopy of 20 type 2 AGNs at z<0.1 using the Magellan/IMACS and the VLT/VIMOS. The observed objects are luminous AGNs with the [O III] luminosity >$10^{41.5}erg/s$, and exhibit strong outflow signatures in the [O III] kinematics. We obtain the maps of the narrow and broad components of [O III] and $H{\alpha}$ lines by decomposing the emission-line profile. The broad components in both [O III] and $H{\alpha}$ represent the non-gravitational kinematics, (i.e., gas outflows), while the narrow components represent the gravitational kinematics (i.e., rotational disks), especially in $H{\alpha}$. By using the spatially integrated spectra within the flux-weighted size of the narrow-line region, we estimate the outflow energetics. The ionized gas mass is $(1.0-38.5){\times}10^5M_{\odot}$, and the mean mass outflow rate is $4.6{\pm}4.3M_{\odot}/yr$, which is a factor of ~260 higher than the mean mass accretion rate $0.02{\pm}0.01M_{\odot}/yr$. The mean energy injection rate is $0.8{\pm}0.6%$ of the AGN bolometric luminosity Lbol, while the mean momentum flux is $(5.4{\pm}3.6){\times}L_{bol}/c$, except for two most kinematically energetic AGNs. The estimated energetics are consistent with the expectations for energy-conserving outflows from AGNs, yet we do not find any supporting evidence of instantaneous star-formation quenching due to the outflows.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.61.2-61.2
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• 2011

Low-ionization nuclear emission-line regions (LINERs) have been generally regarded to be powered by active galactic nuclei (AGNs), yet still a number of alternative explanations on the origin of LINER emission are suggested; for example, planetary nebulae nuclei of massive stars, supernovae shocks from death of massive stars, and old stellar populations. Interestingly, a majority of recent star formation early-type galaxies (ETGs) in local universe presents such LINER emission lines. Given that situation, revealing the true nature of LINERs is a crucial step to constrain the evolution path to quiescent ETGs. To resolve the issue, we use Keck/LRIS to obtain spatially resolved spectra on a carefully selected ETG. The ETG SDSS J091628.05+420818.7 at redshift z ~ 0.024 shows modest LINER emission line features without any detection of 21 cm radio continuum nor X-ray emission. We perform a stellar continuum subtraction and measure emission line strengths and their uncertainties for each spectrum from five apertures along the slit with size of 1 arcsecond (~0.5 kpc). We find that extended spatial distributions of four emission lines $H{\alpha}$, $H{\beta}$, [OIII]${\lambda}5007$, and [NII]${\lambda}6583$, and they can be explained by central emission blurring effect. We conclude that the emissions seem to be centrally concentrated, indicating the AGN-nature of LINERs.

• Journal of Space Technology and Applications
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.241-255
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• 2021

Space observation data includes research data such as stars, galaxies, Sun, space plasma, planets, and minor bodies observed through space missions, including processing and utilizing the observation data. Astronomy and space science observation systems are getting larger, and space mission opportunities and data size are increasing. Accordingly, the need for systematic and efficient management of space observation data is growing. Therefore, in Korea, a strategy and policy for space observation data should be established. As a stage of preparation, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)'s data strategy, which developed from extensive understanding and long-term experience for space observation data, was analyzed. Based on the analysis results, we propose a strategic direction and 10 recommendations for Korean space observation data strategies that will be the basis for establishing space observation data policies in the future.