• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.271-274
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• 2012

We present the result of systematic AKARI IRC infrared $2.5-5{\mu}m$ spectroscopy of >100 nearby luminous infrared galaxies, to investigate the energetic roles of starbursts and optically-elusive buried AGNs. Based on (1) the equivalent widths of the $3.3{\mu}m$ PAH emission features, (2) the optical depths of absorption features, and (3) continuum slopes, we can disentangle emission from starbursts and AGNs. We find that the energetic importance of buried AGNs increases with increasing galaxy infrared luminosities, suggesting that the AGN-starburst connections (and thereby possible AGN feedback to host galaxies) are luminosity dependent.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.209-221
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• 2017

We investigate the star formation rate, stellar mass, and gas-phase metallicity of local starburst galaxies with different star formation time scales based on their optical spectra. The observation is made using the longslit spectrograph attached to the 4K CCD on the Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory 1.8m telescope, targeting 21 Wolf-Rayet galaxies as young starbursts and 13 UV excess galaxies as slightly older starbursts. A Baldwin-Phillips-Terlevich diagram analysis shows that 50% of the observed targets are pure star-forming galaxies while only 15% are classified as Active Galactic Nuclei. Fraction of galaxies that reside in composite region is higher in UV excess galaxies than in Wolf-Rayet galaxies, suggesting that the AGN development requires extra time after the onset of the star formation. Most of the observed starburst galaxies have stellar masses of $10^{9-11}M_{\odot}$ and stellar formation rates of $0.01-100M_{\odot}yr^{-1}$, and their star formation rates are consistent with that of the SDSS star forming main sequence galaxies of similar stellar mass. There is no significant difference between Wolf-Rayet galaxies and UV excess galaxies in terms of the stellar mass and star formation rate. We also see a mass-metallicity relation for local starbursts with slightly lower metallicity for a given stellar mass, which implies the existence of a strong feedback activity due to the star formation in these galaxies.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.232.2-232.2
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• 2012

Submillimeter Galaxies (SMGs) are high-redshift galaxies undergone extremely intense starbursts. Their UV radiation is heavily extinguished by dust and is re-radiated in the far-IR and submillimeter. They are thought to be progenitors of present-day giant elliptical galaxies and can be tracers of the highest density environment at high redshift. However, because of the low angular resolution of existing single-dish submillimeter telescopes, the progress in understanding the SMG population has been remarkably slow. In this talk, I will outline the outstanding issues in this field, and introduce our Submillimeter Array interferometric studies of SMGs. I will also discuss possible new research that will be enabled by next-generation instruments such as ALMA and LMT.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.513-515
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• 2015

We investigate $H\small{I}$ data for a pair of blue compact dwarf galaxies (BCDs), ESO 435-IG20 and ESO 435-IG16, obtained with the Australia Telescope Compact Array. The outer $H\small{I}$ disk is highly disturbed and asymmetric in both galaxies showing a gas tail and/or a broad/extended gas disk on only one side. Based on their low-density surroundings and small projected distance (<80 kpc) at a similar redshift, we conclude that tidal interaction between these two BCDs is responsible for the morphological and kinematical peculiarities in $H\small{I}$. We also investigate their star formation rates using $H{\alpha}$ and UV imaging data to probe their interaction history.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.77.1-77.1
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• 2019

We present the results of the merger fraction evolution for galaxies in NEP-Wide field depending on star formation mode and redshift. We select the galaxies which have AKARI 9 ㎛ detections as a sample for large number of galaxies. We use multi-wavelength data from GALEX to Herschel, and Subaru HSC i-band images for analysis. We classify the merger galaxies with using Gini and M20, which are non-parametric calculated by statmorph code. We obtain the total infrared luminosity from the SED modeling with using one band, AKARI 9 ㎛. We find that the merger fractions of galaxies in all different star formation mode increase as the redshift increases. However, with fixed mass range of 10.5 < log(M🞵) < 11.5, the merger fractions of starbursts significantly increase as the redshift increases compared to those of main sequence and quiescent galaxies. We discuss the implications of these results in this poster.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.43.2-43.2
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• 2021

Ram-pressure stripping (RPS) is known as the main driver of quenching the star formation (SF) activity in cluster galaxies. However, galaxies undergoing RPS in galaxy clusters often show blue star-forming knots in their disturbed disks and tails. The existence of these "jellyfish galaxies" implies that RPS can temporarily boost the SF activity of cluster galaxies. Thus, jellyfish galaxies are very unique and interesting targets to study the influence of RPS on their SF activity, in particular with integral field spectroscopy (IFS). While there have been many IFS studies of jellyfish galaxies in low-mass clusters (e.g., the GASP survey), IFS studies of those in massive clusters have been lacking. We present an IFS study of five jellyfish galaxies in massive clusters at intermediate redshifts using the Gemini GMOS/IFU. Their star formation rates (SFRs) are estimated to be up to 15 Mo/yr in the tails and 50 Mo/yr in the disks. These SFRs are by a factor of 10 higher than those of star-forming galaxies on the main sequence in the M*-SFR relation at similar redshifts. Our results suggest that the SF activity of jellyfish galaxies tends to be more enhanced in massive clusters than in low-mass clusters. This implies that strong RPS in massive clusters can trigger strong starbursts.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.61.2-61.2
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• 2014

A non-axisymmetric mass distribution of galactic structures including bulge (or bar) causes gas inflow from the disk to the nuclear region, including intense star formation within few hundred parsecs of galactic central. In order to investigate the relation between the ellipticity of the bulge and the presence of a nuclear starburst, we use a volume-limited sample of galaxies with Mr < -19.5 mag at 0.02 < z < 0.05 from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7. Total sample is 3252 spiral galaxies, which include nuclear starburst galaxies. We find that the occurrence of nuclear starbursts has a moderate correlation with bulge ellipticity of intermediate-type spiral galaxies (morphology classes Sab-Sb) in low galaxy number density environments and isolated regions where the distance between the target galaxies and the closest galaxies is relatively far. In high galaxy number density environments and interacting regions, close encounters and mergers between galaxies can cause gas inflow to the nuclear region even without the presence of non-axisymmetric bulges.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.175-177
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• 2017

In order to reveal physical conditions of molecular gas in active galaxies (active galaxies mean both starbursts and AGNs in this paper), we carried out systematic observations (R = 19 ~ 120) of CO fundamental band at $4.7{\mu}m$ in absorption with AKARI. We also made follow-up CO absorption observations at higher spectral resolution (R = 5000 ~ 1000) with Subaru. Recently, Herschel made extensive observations of highly-excited CO lines in emission in the far-infrared. The two data sets (absorption and emission) sometimes provide us with apparently inconsistent results. One case is starburst galaxies: Subaru observations showed low temperature of molecular gas toward the starburst NGC 253, while Herschel detected highly excited CO lines in the starburst. This suggests that warm molecular clouds are more deeply embedded than newly formed star clusters. The other case is obscured AGNs; Herschel detected highly excited CO lines in emission in nearby AGNs, while AKARI and Subaru observations showed CO absorption only in some of the obscured AGNs. This could reflect the difference of nature of molecular tori in these AGNs. We propose the combination of the absorption and emission observations as an effective tool to reveal geometry of warm molecular clouds in active galaxies.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.235-244
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• 2019

We present the results of near-infrared imaging observations of the galaxy overdensity around the z = 1.44 radio-loud active galactic nucleus (AGN) 6CE1100+3505, which was carried out with the purpose of sampling the redshifted Hα emission from the actively star-forming galaxies that could constitute the overdensity. The existence of the structure around this AGN was spectroscopically confirmed by previous grism observations which are however limited to the central region. Using the CH4Off narrow/medium-band and H broad band filters in the Wide Infrared Camera (WIRCam) on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), we constructed a sample of objects that show a flux excess in the CH4Off band due to line emission. The emission line flux is ~ 4.9 × 10^-16 erg s^-1 cm^-2, corresponding to a star formation rate (SFR) of ~ 50 M_⊙ yr^-1 for galaxies at redshifts z ~ 1.4. None of the galaxies with medium-band flux excess is located within 1 Mpc from the central AGN, and there is no evidence that the selected galaxies are associated with the proposed cluster. Along with the star formation quenching near the center that was found from the previous grism observations, the lack of extreme starbursts in the structure suggests that at z ~ 1.4, overdense regions are no longer favorable locations for vigorous star formation.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.34.2-35
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• 2018

Galaxy transition from star-forming to quiescent, accompanied with morphology transformation, is one of the key unresolved issues in extragalactic astronomy. Although several environmental mechanisms have been proposed, a deeper understanding of the impact of environment on galaxy transition still requires much exploration. My Ph.D. thesis focuses on which environmental mechanisms are primarily responsible for galaxy transition in different environments and looks at what happens during the transition phase using multi-wavelength photometric/spectroscopic data, from UV to mid-infrared (MIR), derived from several large surveys (GALEX, SDSS, and WISE) and our GMOS-North IFU observations. Our multi-wavelength approach provides new insights into the *late* stages of galaxy transition with a definition of the MIR green valley different from the optical green valley. I will present highlights from three areas in my thesis. First, through an in-depth study of environmental dependence of various properties of galaxies in a nearby supercluster A2199 (Lee et al. 2015), we found that the star formation of galaxies is quenched before the galaxies enter the MIR green valley, which is driven mainly by strangulation. Then, the morphological transformation from late- to early-type galaxies occurs in the MIR green valley. The main environmental mechanisms for the morphological transformation are galaxy-galaxy mergers and interactions that are likely to happen in high-density regions such as galaxy groups/clusters. After the transformation, early-type MIR green valley galaxies keep the memory of their last star formation for several Gyr until they move on to the next stage for completely quiescent galaxies. Second, compact groups (CGs) of galaxies are the most favorable environments for galaxy interactions. We studied MIR properties of galaxies in CGs and their environmental dependence (Lee et al. 2017), using a sample of 670 CGs identified using a friends-of-friends algorithms. We found that MIR [3.4]-[12] colors of CG galaxies are, on average, bluer than those of cluster galaxies. As CGs are located in denser regions, they tend to have larger early-type galaxy fractions and bluer MIR color galaxies. These trends can also be seen for neighboring galaxies around CGs. However, CG members always have larger early-type fractions and bluer MIR colors than their neighboring galaxies. These results suggest that galaxy evolution is faster in CGs than in other environments and that CGs are likely to be the best place for pre-processing. Third, post-starburst galaxies (PSBs) are an ideal laboratory to investigate the details of the transition phase. Their spectra reveal a phase of vigorous star formation activity, which is abruptly ended within the last 1 Gyr. Numerical simulations predict that the starburst, and thus the current A-type stellar population, should be localized within the galaxy's center (< kpc). Yet our GMOS IFU observations show otherwise; all five PSBs in our sample have Hdelta absorption line profiles that extend well beyond the central kpc. Most interestingly, we found a negative correlation between the Hdelta gradient slopes and the fractions of the stellar mass produced during the starburst, suggesting that stronger starbursts are more centrally-concentrated. I will discuss the results in relation with the origin of PSBs.