• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.75-85
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• 2002

We present N-body simulations of globular clusters including gravitational field of the Galaxy, in order to study effects of tidal field systematically on the shape of outer parts of globular clusters using NBODY6. The Galaxy is assumed to be composed of central bulge and outer halo. We mvestigate the cluster of multi-mass models with a power-law initial mass function (IMF) starting with different initial masses, initial number of particles, different slopes of the IMF and different orbits of the cluster. We have examined the general evolution of the clusters, the shape of outer parts of the clusters, density profiles and the direction of tidal tails. The density profiles appear to become somewhat shallower just outside the tidal boundary consistent with some observed data. The position angle of the tidal tall depends on the location in the Galaxy as well as the direction of the motion of. clusters. We found that the clusters become more elongated at the apogalacticon than at the pengalacticon. The tidal tails may be used to trace the orbital paths of globular clusters.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.135-139
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• 2010

We present the result of our investigation on the impact of the low Solar abundance of Asplund and collaborators (2004) on the derived ages for the oldest star clusters based on isochrone fittings. We have constructed new stellar models and corresponding isochrones using this new solar mixture with a proper Solar calibration. We have found that the use of the Asplund et al. (2004) metallicity causes the typical ages for old globular clusters in the Milky Way to be increased roughly by 10%. Although this may appear small, it has a significant impact on the interpretation for the formation epoch of Milky Way globular clusters. The Asplund et al. (2004) abundance may not necessarily threaten the current concordance cosmology but would suggest that Milky Way globular clusters formed before the reionization epoch and before the main galaxy body starts to build up. This is in contrast to the current understanding on the galaxy formation.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.189-212
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• 2003

I review the current status of understanding when, how long, and how giant elliptical galaxies formed, focusing on the globular clusters. Several observational evidences show that massive elliptical galaxies formed at z > 2 (> 10 Gyr ago). Giant elliptical galaxies show mostly a bimodal color distribution of globular clusters, indicating a factor of $\approx$ 20 metallicity difference between the two peaks. The red globular clusters (RGCs) are closely related with the stellar halo in color and spatial distribution, while the blue globular clusters (BGCs) are not. The ratio of the number of the RGCs and that of the BGCs varies depending on galaxies. It is concluded that the BGCs might have formed 12-13 Gyr ago, while the RGCs and giant elliptical galaxies might have formed similarly 10-11 Gyr ago. It remains now to explain the existence of a gap between the RGC formation epoch and the BGC formation epoch, and the rapid metallicity increase during the gap (${\Delta}t{\approx}$ 2 Gyr). If hierarchical merging can form a significant number of giant elliptical galaxies > 10 Gyr ago, several observational constraints from stars and globular clusters in elliptical galaxies can be explained.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.15 no.spc1
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• pp.15-30
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• 2000

A large scatter of the chemical abundances among globular cluster red giants has been observed. Especially the chemical elements C, N, O, Na, Mg, and Al vary form star to star within globular clusters. Except for $\omega$ Cen and M22, most globular clusters could be considered to be monometallic of their iron peak elements within error ranges. The variations in light elements among globuar cluster giants appear much more pronounced than in field halo giants of comparable Fe-peak metallicity. It has been found that in general the nitrogen abundance is anticorrelated with both carbon and oxygen, while it is correlated with Na and AI. These intracluster abundance inhomogeneities can be interpreted either by mixing of nucleosythesized material from the deep stellar interior during the red giant branch phase of evolution or by inhomogeneities of primordially processed material, from which the stars were formed. The simple way of distingushing between two senarios is to obtain the element abundances of main-sequence stars in globular clusters, which are too faint for high resolution spectroscopic studies until now. Both 'evolutionary' and 'primodial' origins are accepted for explanations of abundance variations among red giants and CN-CH anticorrelations among main-sequence stars in globular clusters. This paper reviews chemical abundances of light elements among globular cluster giants, with brief reviews of cannonical stellar evolution of low mass stars after main-sequence and deep mixing for abundance variations of cluster giants, and a possible connection between deep mixing and second parameter.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.17-39
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• 1999

We investigate dynamical evolution of globular clusters with multi-mass component under the Galactic tidal field. We compare the results with our previous work which considered the cases of single-mass component m the globular clusters. We find the followings: 1) The general evolutions are similar to the cases of single-mass component. 2) There is no evidence for dependence on the orbital phase of the cluster as in the case of single-mass component. 3) The escape rate in multi-mass models is larger than that in the single-mass models. 4) The mass-function depends on radius more sensitively in anisotropic models than in isotropic models.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.345-347
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• 2015

We present evolutionary models of rotating self-gravitating systems (e.g. globular clusters, galaxy cores). These models are characterized by the presence of an initial axi-symmetry due to rotation. Central black hole seeds are included in our models, and black hole growth due to the consumption of stellar matter is simulated until the central potential dominates the kinematics of the core. Our goal is to study the long-term evolution (Gyr) of relaxed dense stellar systems which deviate from spherical symmetry, and their morphology and final kinematics. With this purpose in mind, we developed a 2D Fokker-Planck analytical code, and confirmed its results using detailed N-Body simulations, applying a high performance code developed for GPU machines. We conclude that the initial rotation significantly modifies the shape and lifetime of these systems, and cannot be neglected in the study of the evolution of globular clusters, and the galaxy itself. Our models give a constraint for the final intermediate black hole masses expected to be present in globular clusters.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.1-17
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• 1997

The results of a restricted numerical simulation for the color gradients within globular clusters have been presented. The standard luminosity function of M3 and Salperter's initial mass functions were used to generate model clusters as a fundamental population. Color gradients with the sample clusters for both King and power law cusp models of surface brightness distributions are discussed in the case of using the standard luminosity function. The dependence of color gradients on several parameters for the simulations with Salpter's initial mass functions, such as slope of initial mass functions, cluster ages, metallicities, concentration parameters of King model, and slopes of power law, are also discussed. No significant radial color gradients are shown to the sample clusters which are regenerated by a random number generation technique with various parameters in both of King and power law cusp models of surface brightness distributions. Dynamical mass segregation and stellar evolution of horizontal branch stars and blue stragglers should be included for the general case of model simulations to show the observed radial color gradients within globular clusters.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.83-97
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• 2017

We present extra-tidal features of spatial configuration of stars around three metal-poor globular clusters (NGC 6266, NGC 6273, NGC 6681) located in the Galactic bulge. The wide-field photometric data were obtained in BVI bands with the MOSAIC II camera at CTIO 4 m Blanco telescope. The derived color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs) contain stars in a total $71^{\prime}{\times}71^{\prime}$ area including a cluster and its surrounding field outside of the tidal radius of the cluster. Applying statistical filtering technique, we minimized the field star contaminations on the obtained cluster CMDs and extracted the cluster members. On the spatial stellar density maps around the target clusters, we found overdensity features beyond the tidal radii of the clusters. We also found that the radial density profiles of the clusters show departures from the best-fit King model for their outer regions which support the overdensity patterns.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.267-268
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• 2015

One of the long-standing problems in modern astronomy is the curious division of globular clusters (GCs) into two groups, according to the mean period (<$P_{ab}$>) of type ab RR Lyrae variables. In light of the recent discovery of multiple populations in GCs, we suggest a new model explaining the origin of the Sandage period-shift and the difference in mean period of type ab RR Lyrae variables between the two Oosterhoff groups. In our models, the instability strip in the metal-poor group II clusters, such as M15, is populated by second generation stars (G2) with enhanced helium and CNO abundances, while the RR Lyraes in the relatively metal-rich group I clusters like M3 are mostly produced by first generation stars (G1) without these enhancements. This population shift within the instability strip with metallicity can create the observed period-shift between the two groups, since both helium and CNO abundances play a role in increasing the period of RR Lyrae variables. The presence of more metal-rich clusters having Oosterhoff-intermediate characteristics, such as NGC 1851, as well as of most metal-rich clusters having RR Lyraes with the longest periods (group III) can also be reproduced, as more helium-rich third and later generations of stars (G3) penetrate into the instability strip with further increase in metallicity. Therefore, although there are systems where the suggested population shift cannot be a viable explanation, for the most general cases, our models predict that RR Lyraes are produced mostly by G1, G2, and G3, respectively, for the Oosterhoff groups I, II, and III.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.489-490
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• 2015

We present population synthesis models for the calcium II triplet (CaT), currently the most popular metallicity indicator, based on high-resolution empirical spectral energy distributions (SEDs). Our new CaT models, based on empirical SEDs, show a linear correlation below [Fe/H] ~ -0.5, but the linear relation breaks down in the metal-rich regime by converging to the same equivalent width. This relation shows good agreement with the observed CaT of globular clusters (GCs) in NGC 1407 and the Milky Way. However, a model based on theoretical SEDs does not show this feature of the CaT and fails to reproduce observed GCs in the metal-rich regime. This linear relation may cause inaccurate metallicity determination for metal-rich stellar populations. We have also confirmed that the effect of horizontal-branch stars on the CaT is almost negligible in models based on both empirical and theoretical SEDs. Our new empirical model may explain the difference between the color distributions and CaT distributions of GCs in various early-type galaxies. Based on our model, we claim that the CaT is not a good metallicity indicator for simple stellar populations in the metal-rich regime.