• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.53.1-53.1
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• 2021

The KASI team are participating in the NASA MIDEX mission (PI Institute: Caltech), the all-sky infrared spectro-photometric surveyor SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer). The SPHEREx will provide us the first all-sky infrared spectro-photometric data set to probe the origin of our Universe, to explore the origin and evolution of galaxies, and to explore whether planets around other stars could harbor life. After the project PDR (Preliminary Design Review) was successfully passed on the last September, the fabrication of flight hardware is in progress. As an international partner, KASI deeply involved in all fields of projects, i.e., the development of calibration facility, the construction of data reduction modules and the science studies for the SPHEREx. After finishing the fabrication and test of calibration facility for the SPHEREx in this year, it will be delivered to Caltech. Here, we report the status of the SPHEREx project and the progress in the Korean participation.

• 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.

• 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.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.135-139
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• 2017

We have performed systematic studies of the properties of dust in various environments of nearby galaxies with AKARI. The unique capabilities of AKARI, such as near-infrared (near-IR) spectroscopy combined with all-sky coverage in the mid- and far-IR, enable us to study processing of dust, particularly carbonaceous grains includings polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), for unbiased samples of nearby galaxies. In this paper, we first review our recent results on individual galaxies, highlighting the uniqueness of AKARI data for studies of nearby galaxies. Then we present results of our systematic studies on nearby starburst and early-type galaxies. From the former study based on the near-IR spectroscopy and mid-IR all-sky survey data, we find that the properties of PAHs change systematically from IR galaxies to ultraluminous IR galaxies, depending on the IR luminosity of a galaxy or galaxy population. From the latter study based on the mid- and far-IR all-sky survey data, we find that there is a global correlation between the amounts of dust and old stars in early-type galaxies, giving an observational constraint on the origin of the dust.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.109-111
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• 2017

We detected bright mid- to far-infrared emission from the helium nova V445 Puppis in the AKARI all-sky survey data taken in 2006. Assuming an optically thin condition, we decomposed the spectral energy distribution (SED) of V445 Puppis in October 2006 by model fitting and found that the SED can be explained by a combination of cold amorphous carbon (125 K and the mass of $4.5^{+6.6}_{-2.7}{\times}10^{-4}M_{\odot}$) and warm amorphous carbon (250 K and the mass of $1.8^{+1.0}_{-0.5}{\times}10^{-5}M_{\odot}$). Assuming that the former is pre-existing dust formed in the past nova outbursts and the latter is newly formed dust in December 2000's nova wind, this result suggests that the amount of dust formed around V445 Puppis in a single outburst is larger than $10^{-5}M_{\odot}$, which is larger than those in any other classical novae ever reported.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.52.2-52.2
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• 2010

In search of the intracluster dusts, we have made a survey of globular clusters (GCs) with the Far-Infrared Surveyor (FIS) aboard AKARI, the Japanese infrared space satellite. The GCs are thought to host dust particles that are condensed from the material injected by the cluster asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars. However, attempts to detect dust emission from GCs had not been successful until a significant amount of far-infrared (FIR) emission was detected close to the NGC 7078 center by the ISO observations (Evans et al. 2003). Recent FIR observations by the AKARI (Matsunaga et al. 2008) and the Spitzer Space Telescope (Boyer et al. 2006; Barmpy et al. 2009) reported a tentative detection of the dusts in NGC 5024 and NGC 6341, and also confirmed the previous ISO dust detection from NGC 7078. We have observed 17 selected GCs in four FIS wavebands at 65, 90, 140, and 160 micrometers. Each observation covers about $10'{\times}10'$ area centered at each GC. The resulting images show extended structures and/or blobs around the GCs. The extended structures are very suggestive of the Galactic cirrus, while the blobs around NGC 288 and NGC 4833 seem to be related to the two clusters. In this presentation, we will report four representative cases of our survey results and discuss the properties of newly detected sources.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.152.1-152.1
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• 2011

We report preliminary results of long-slit near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy of Luminous Blue Variables (LBVs) with moderate resolution of R ~ 2400. We obtained Jshort (1.04-1.26 micron) and Ks (2.02-2.31 micron) band spectra of 4 LBVs and 3 LBV candidates in Southern hemisphere using IRIS2, infrared imager and spectrograph, mounted on the 4-m Anglo-Australian Telescope. All targets are fairly bright in NIR so that we can obtain high signal-to-noise ratio for clear line detection and modeling. They are also widely distributed in the HR diagram so that we can compare the spectral properties of LBVs in different temperature and luminosity ranges. Among them, we present the results of two well-known LBVs AG Car and HR Car. Their spectra show similar properties with hydrogen, He I, and metallic lines such as Fe II and Mg II, most of them in emission. We discuss, in particular, the He I 1.083 micron lines formed in stellar wind because these two LBVs show large variation in their He I line intensities, compared to previous studies. Since the He I 1.083 line is known to be anticorrelated with the photometric variation of LBVs, strong line intensities with P-Cygni profiles in both stars indicate that they are now near the visual minimum phase. We model the obtained spectra using non-LTE atmosphere code CMFGEN of Hillier (1998) to derive stellar parameters such as wind velocity and mass loss rate, and discuss the long-term variability of stellar parameters of these LBVs. deduced from our otometric solution.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.201-208
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• 2011

The NGC 1333 IRAS 4B region is observed in the 6.9 mm and 1.3 cm continuum with an angular resolution of about 0.4 arcseconds. IRAS 4BI is detected in both bands, and BII is detected in the 6.9 mm continuum only. The 1.3 cm source of BI seems to be a disk-like flattened structure with a size of about 50 AU. IRAS 4BI does not show any sign of multiplicity. Examinations of archival infrared images show that the dominating emission feature in this region is a bright peak in the southern outflow driven by BI, corresponding to the molecular hydrogen emission source HL 9a. Both BI and BII are undetectable in the mid-IR bands. The upper limit on the far-IR flux of IRAS 4BII suggests that it may be a very low luminosity young stellar object.

• Bulletin of the Korean Space Science Society
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• 1992.10a
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• pp.19-22
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• 1992

We have computed the model spectra for the novae that formed dust grains shortly after their explosions. And the results are closely compared with recent infrared observational data. The amorphous carbon grains appear to be the major component for the carbon-rich novae. And the silicate grains which reside in Mira variables are found to be the best candidate material for the oxygen-rich novae. In novae, the winds from the central stars are very strong and fast so the emergent spectra are highly dependent on the time scales of dust formation. We find optically thin dustemission for oxgen-rich novae because they have longer time-scales of dust formation and the dust shells with larger radii.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.93.2-93.2
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• 2014

Planetary nebulae (PN) are the last stages of evolution of intermediate mass (1-8 Msolar) stars. Their shapes are thought to result from interactions between the present-day, fast (emerging white dwarf) and previously ejected, slow (red giant) stellar winds. The observation of young, bright PN, NGC7027 and BD+30 3639, was made on July 7, 2014 using the 2.7m Harlan J. Smith telescope at the McDonald Observatory. IGRINS with high spatial (0.27") and high spectral ($7.5km\;s^{-1}$) resolution will provide more nebular lines and excitation/abundances to constrain the morphology and kinematics of the Nebula and the PDRs. Combined with other archival data (X-ray, 2MASS, WISE, Spitzer, Herschel) for PN, high-resolution IR spectroscopy will yield insight into poorly understood aspects of PN morphologies and the late stages of binary star evolution.