• 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.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.341-343
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• 2015

We present an analysis of the relation between star-formation (SF) and accretion luminosities of local type-2 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at $0.01{\leq}z<0.22$. We match type-2 AGNs found in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to current far-infrared (FIR) survey catalogues based on AKARI and Herschel. Estimating AGN luminosities from [$O{\small{III}}$]${\lambda}5007$ and [$O{\small{I}}$]${\lambda}6300$ emission lines, we find a positive linear trend between FIR and AGN luminosities over a wide dynamical range. This result appears to be inconsistent with recent reports that low-luminosity AGNs show no correlation between FIR and X-ray luminosities; this contradiction is likely due to Malmquist and sample selection biases. Moreover, we also find that pure-AGN candidates, for which the FIR radiation is thought to be AGN-dominated, show significant low-SF activities. These AGNs hosted by low-SF galaxies are rare in our sample. However, it is possible that the low fraction of low-SF AGN is caused by observational limitations, as recent FIR surveys are not sufficient to examine the population of high-luminosity AGNs hosted by low-SF galaxies.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.63.1-63.1
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• 2020

We investigate the effect of recent star formation (RSF) on the α-elements-to-iron ratio ([α/Fe]) estimation for galaxies. Measuring galactic [α/Fe] is a powerful tool to pinpointing the timescale of chemical evolution and star formation. Our working hypothesis is that, with increasing stellar surface temperature, absorption equivalent width (EW) of α-elements decreases faster than that of Fe-peak elements, and thus RSF will lower the line ratio of EW(α)/EW(Fe). Moreover, young stars outshine, effectively lowering EW(α)/EW(Fe) of integrated light of RSF galaxies. Here we test our hypothesis using SDSS (optical spectrophotometric), GALEX (UV photometric) and IllustrisTNG datasets, and show that, if RSF is not considered thoroughly, EW(α)/EW(Fe) lowered by RSF can be routinely misinterpreted as low [α/Fe]. We discuss possible implications of the result in the context of the conventional [α/Fe]-mass relation of galaxies.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.32.2-32.2
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• 2013

We examine large-scale environmental effects on the formation and the mass growth of dark matter halos. To facilitate this, we constructed dark matter halo merger trees from a cosmological N-body simulation, which enabled us to trace the merger information and the assembly history of individual halos. In fact, since the massive halos are more likely to be distributed in denser regions than in less dense regions (Mo & White, 1996), the large-scale environment dependence of the properties of halos can be partly originated from the halo mass effect. In order to avoid such contamination, caused by the mass dependence of halo properties, we carefully measured the local overdensity as the indicator of large-scale environment, which was calculated to be as independent of halo mass as possible. Small halos (${\sim}10^{11-12}M_{\odot}$), which usually host isolated single galaxies, show a notable difference on the formation time of galaxies depending on their large-scale environments, which reconfirms halo assembly bias (Gao & White, 2007). Furthermore, we investigate how this environmental effect on small halos is correlated with the mass assembly history of galaxies by using our semi-analytic model. We found that assembly bias in small halos does not have significant effects on the formation time or on the star formation history of galaxies residing in those halos except for the individual stellar mass of galaxies at z = 0. On average, isolated galaxies in high-density regions tend to be slightly more massive than those in low-density regions. Although the observational data from the current galaxy surveys is not yet sufficient for testing this prediction, future galaxy surveys will be able to explore these small galaxies more thoroughly.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.243-248
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• 2012

Nearby spiral galaxies M101 and M81 are considered to have undergone a galaxy-galaxy interaction. M101 has experienced HI gas infall due to the interaction. With AKARI far-infrared (IR) photometric observations, we found regions with enhanced star forming activity, which are spatially close to regions affected by the interaction. In addition, the relation between the star formation rate (SFR) and the gas content for such regions shows a significant difference from typical spiral arm regions. We discuss possible explanations for star formation processes on a kiloparsec scale and the association with interaction-triggered star formation. We also observed the compact group of galaxies Stephan's Quintet (SQ) with the AKARI Far-infrared Surveyor (FIS). The SQ shows diffuse intergalactic medium (IGM) due to multiple collisions between the member galaxies and the IGM. The intruder galaxy NGC 7318b is currently colliding with the IGM and causes a large-scale shock. The 160 micron image clearly shows the structure along the shock ridge as seen in warm molecular hydrogen line emission and X-ray emission. The far-IR emission from the shocked region comes from the luminous [CII]$158{\mu}m$ line and cold dust (~ 20 K) that coexist with molecular hydrogen gas. Survival of dust grains is indispensable to form molecular hydrogen gas within the collision age (~ 5 Myr). At the stage of the dusty IGM environment, [CII] and $H_2$ lines rather than X-ray emission are powerful cooling channels to release the collision energy.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.31.2-31.2
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• 2017

The central regions of barred-spiral galaxies contain interesting gaseous structures such as dust lanes and nuclear rings with intense star formation. While our previous studies were useful in understanding the formation of these structures star formation history, they were limited to 2D isothermal galaxies in which the stellar disk and halo are modeled by fixed gravitational potentials. To study the effects of bar growth as well as the vertical dimension, we use the mesh-free hydrodynamic code named GIZMO and run 3D simulations by treating the stellar disk and halo as being live. We find that the new 3D models form the gaseous features similarly to the previous 2D models, although the detailed formation processes are quite different. For example, a ring has a large radius when it first forms and shrinks over time in the previous 2D models. In the 3D live-potential models, however, a ring forms small and grows in size with time. We present the results of the new simulations and discuss them in comparison with the previous 2D results.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.81-81
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• 2012

Since the ultraviolet (UV) flux of an integrated population is a good tracer of recent star formation activities, UV observations provide an important constraint on star formation history (SFH) in galaxies. We present UV color-magnitude relations (CMRs) of early-type dwarf galaxies in the Virgo cluster, based on Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) UV data and the Extended Virgo Cluster Catalog (EVCC, Kim, S. in prep.). The EVCC covers an area 5.4 times larger (750 deg2) than the footprint of the classical Virgo cluster catalog by Binggeli and collaborators. We secure 1304 galaxies as members of the Virgo cluster and 526 galaxies of them are new objects not contained in the VCC. Morphological classification of galaxies in the EVCC is based on the optical image ("Primary Classification") and spectral feature ("Secondary Classification") of the SDSS data. We find that dwarf lenticular galaxies (dS0s) show a surprisingly distinct and tight locus separated from that of ordinary dwarf elliptical galaxies (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. 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. 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 with models with relatively long delayed star formation. Our results suggest that dS0s are most likely transitional objects at the stage of subsequent transformation of late-type progenitors to ordinary red dEs in the cluster environment. In any case, UV photometry provides a powerful tool to disentangle the diverse subpopulations of early-type dwarf galaxies and uncover their evolutionary histories.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.49-49
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• 2014

Blue Compact Dwarf galaxies (BCDs) are low-mass galaxies with recently enhanced star formation activity. Since the discovery of old stellar population in the BCDs, a number of hypotheses have been suggested as the origin of the current active star formation. One theory is tidal interactions such as fly-by and merger. In this study we test this hypothesis using a pair of BCDs, ESO 435-IG20 and ESO 435-IG16 that are separate by only ~80 kpc in projection at a similar redshift (at a ~9 Mpc distance). In the HIPASS survey, intergalactic atomic hydrogen envelope has been found to be covering both galaxies, making the pair a good candidate for the case where the star formation has been triggered by tidal interaction. We probe the gas morphology and kinematics of the BCD pair using ATCA HI data in order to find the evidence of tidal interaction. We also estimate star formation rates in the pair based on Ha emission and UV continuum, and compare with other dwarf galaxies to investigate how responsible the tidal interaction is for the enhanced star formation in this case.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.76.2-76.2
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• 2015

We present the results of the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) HI imaging study of seven late-type galaxies. They are located in the outskirts of the Virgo cluster, possibly along a filament connected to Virgo from the north-west. Most galaxies in this region are found to be HI-rich, containing more HI gas compared to field galaxies with similar size and optical luminosity. The positions of the sample with respect to the cluster and their high HI mass-to-light ratios suggest that the selected galaxies might be accreting more gas from their surroundings while falling into the cluster. By high-resolution HI imaging, we aim to find evidence that galaxies are pre-processed by gas accretion from the intergalactic medium and/or gas-rich neighbors. We probe the detailed HI morphology/kinematics and the star formation properties of the sample. All of these galaxies are found with a large HI disk which is quite extended compared to their stellar disk. Together with kinematical peculiarities, this strongly suggests that cold gas accretion is responsible for active star formation in these galaxies.

• 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.