• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.20 no.1 s.24
• /
• pp.7-10
• /
• 2005

We have calculated 2448 interstellar cloud models to investigate the formation and destruction of high rotational level $H_2$ according to the combinations of five physical conditions: the input UV intensity, the $H_2$ column density, cloud temperature, total density, and the $H_2$ formation rate efficiency. The models include the populations of all the accessible states of $H_2$ with the rotational quantum number J < 16 as a function of depth through the model clouds, and assume that the abundance of $H_2$ is in a steady state governed primarily by the rate of formation on the grain surfaces and the rates of destruction by spontaneous fluorescent dissociation following absorption in the Lyman and Werner band systems. The high rotational levels J = 4 and J = 5 are both populated by direct formation into these levels of newly created molecules, and by pumping from J = 0 and J = 1, respectively The model results show that the high rotational level ratio N(4)/N(0) is proportional to the incident UV intensity, and is inversely proportional to the $H_2$ molecular fraction, as predicted in theory.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.25 no.2
• /
• pp.111-128
• /
• 1992

Infrared emissions from spherical dust, clouds are calculated using quasi-diffusion method. We have employed graphite-silicate mixture with power-law size distribution for the dust model. The grains are assumed to be heated and cooled by radiative processes only. The primary heating source is diffuse interstellar radiation field. hut the cases with an embedded source are also considered. Since graphite grains have higher temperature than silicate grains, the observed IR emission is mainly due to graphite grains, unless the fraction of graphite grains is negligibly small. The color temperature of Bok globules obtained from IRAS 60 and $100{\mu}m$ data are found to be consistent with the dust cloud with graphite-silicate mixture exposed to average interstellar radiation field. The color temperature is sensitive to the external radiation field, but rather insensitive to the size distribution of the grains. We found that the density distribution can be recovered outside the beam size using the inversion technique that assumes negligible optical depth. However, the information within the beam size is lost for if beam convolved intensity distributions are used in deriving density profile.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.40 no.4
• /
• pp.131-132
• /
• 2007

The research of OH maser emission sources with high angular resolution is complicated by the effects of interstellar scattering: more over, most of the OH maser sources are located in the galactic plane where the scattering is largest. However, the data available from pulsar studies on the spatial distribution of the amount of scattering indicate that there is a strong non-uniformity in the distribution of the amount of scattering material. There are directions in the galactic plane where the scattering is an order of magnitude higher than the average, as well as directions where the scattering is much lower. The latter provide an opportunity to investigate OH masers with the full angular resolution offered by very long baseline interferometry instruments, like the VLBA, and measure their true angular size, shape and brightness temperature. We have observed approximately 100 OH maser sources, distributed all over the northern hemisphere, with the VLBA in order to study the scattering properties of the interstellar medium.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.29 no.2
• /
• pp.107-117
• /
• 1996

We have studied the star forming activities and dust properties of Lynds 1251, a dark cloud located at relatively high galactic latitude. Eleven IRAS point sources identified toward Lynds 1251 are discussed. Estimate of stellar masses, and far-infrared lumnosities of the young stars associated with two prominent IRAS point sources imply that these are T-Tauri stars with masses smaller than $0.3 M_\bigodot$. The low dust temperature of 27 K and low ratio of FIR emission to hydrogen column density are probably due to the lack of internal heating sources. Presumably two low mass young stars do not have enough energy to heat up the dust and gas associated. The dust heating is dominated by the interstellar heating source, and the weaker interstellar radiation field can explain the exceptionally low dust temperatures found in Lynds 1251. The estimated dust mass of Lynds 1251 is just $\~1M_\bigodot$, or about 1/1000 of gas mass, which implies that there must be a substantial amount of colder dust. The infrared flux at $100{\mu}m$ is matching well with $^{13}CO$ peak temperature, while the $^{12}CO$ integrated intensity is matching with the boundary of dust emission. Overall, the dust properties of Lynds 1251 is similar to those of normal dark clouds even though it does have star forming activities.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.39 no.3
• /
• pp.73-80
• /
• 2006

We analyze the extinction law towards several B1V stars-members of our Galaxy, searching for possible discrepancies from the galactic average extinction curve. Our photometric data allow to build extinction curves in a very broad range: from extreme UV till infrared. Two-colour diagrams, based on the collected photometric data from the ANS UV satellite, published UBV measurements and on the infrared 2MASS data of the selected stars, are constructed. Slopes of the fitted straight lines are used to build the average extinction curve and to search for discrepant objects. The selected stars have also been observed spectroscopically from the Terskol and ESO Observatories; these spectra allow to check their Sp/L's. The spectra of only about 30% of the initially selected objects resemble closely that of HD144470, considered as the standard of B1 V type. Other spectra either show some emission features or belong clearly to another spectral types. They are not used to build the extinction curve. Two-colour diagrams, constructed for the selected B1 V stars, showing no emission stellar features, prove that the interstellar extinction law is homogeneous in the Galaxy. Both the shape of the curve and the total-to-selective extinction ratio do not differ from the galactic average and the canonical value(3.1) respectively. The circumstellar emissions usually cause some discrepancies from the average interstellar extinction law; the discrepancies observed in the extraterrestrial ultraviolet, usually follow some misclassifications.

• Bulletin of the Korean Space Science Society
• /
• 2009.10a
• /
• pp.33.2-33.2
• /
• 2009

Diffuse ionized gas (DIG or warm ionized medium, WIM) outside traditional regions is a major component of the interstellar medium (ISM) not only in our Galaxy, but also in other galaxies. It is generally believed that major fraction of the Halpha emission in the DIG is provided by OB stars. In the "standard" photoionization models, the Lyman continuum photons escaping from bright H II regions is the dominant source responsible for ionizing the DIG. Then, a complex density structure must provide the low-density paths that allow the photons to traverse kiloparsec scales and ionize the gas far from the OB stars not only at large heights above the midplane, but also within a galactic plane. Here, I present Monte-Carlo models to examine the propagation of the ionizing radiation leaked out of traditional H II regions into the diffuse ISM applied to two face-on spirals M 51 and NGC 7424. We find that the "standard" scenario requires absorption too unrealistically small to be believed, but the obtained scale-height of the galactic disk is consistent with those of edge-on galaxies. We also report that the probability density functions of the Halpha intensities of the DIG and H II regions in the galaxies are log-normal, indicating the turbulence property of the ISM.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.38 no.1
• /
• pp.46.2-46.2
• /
• 2013

The neutral component of the interstellar medium (ISM) is segregated into the cold neutral medium (CNM) and warm neutral medium (WNM) as a result of thermal instability. It was found that the CNM--WNM evaporation interface, across which the CNM undergoes thermal expansion, is linearly unstable to corrugational disturbances, in complete analogy with the Darrieus-Landau instability (DLI) in terrestrial flames. To explore dynamical consequences of the DLI in the ISM, we perform a linear stability analysis of the DLI including the effect of thermal conduction as well as nonlinear hydrodynamic simulations. We find that the DLI is suppressed at short length scales via heat transport. The linear growth time of the fastest growing mode is proportional to the square of the evaporation flow speed of the CNM relative to the interface and is typically >10 Myr. In the nonlinear stage, perturbations grow into cusp-like structure protruding toward the WNM, and soon reach a steady state where the evaporation rate is increased by a factor of 2 compared to the initial state. We demonstrate that the amplitude of the interface distortion and enhancement in evaporation rate are determined primarily by the density ratio between the CNM and WNM. Given quite a long growth time and highly subsonic velocities at saturation, the DLI is unlikely to play an important role in the ISM dynamics.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.38 no.1
• /
• pp.55.1-55.1
• /
• 2013

We analyze the behaviors of reddening vectors in the Spitzer/IRAC photometric system for young stellar objects (YSOs) of different evolutionary stages, masses, and inclinations using the model spectral energy distributions (SED) by Robitaille et al. As reported in visible and near-infrared photometric systems, the magnitudes and colors of YSOs show strong SED dependence and non-linearity. In the [8.0] band where the 9.7 ${\mu}m$ interstellar silicate feature plays a significant role in extinction, the effective wavelength shifts "bluewards", not "redwards" as in most, if not all, optical and infrared bands including the other three IRAC bands, as the extinction in Ks increases up to ~2 mag, and then asymptotically reaches a constant value as the extinction further increases. This "bluening" is seen when the YSO is in later evolutionary stage and/or has a stellar mass of ~2 $M_{\odot}$ or greater. In many cases, the reddening vectors in the IRAC color-color diagrams are prominently curved, and in some extreme cases, the colors involving the [8.0] band becomes bluer in the beginning and then becomes redder later as the amount of extinction increases. We also present our "suggested" extinction laws employing the combination of a broken-power law and the 9.7 ${\mu}m$ silicate feature, which well reproduce the extinction behaviors observed in the IRAC bands.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.30 no.2
• /
• pp.169-171
• /
• 2015

NGC147 and NGC185, paired satellites of the Andromeda galaxy, possess the same order of mass and analogous structures, but they show different star formation and different amounts of interstellar gas and dust. Therefore, we present the first reconstruction of the star formation history of NGC147 and NGC185. Asymptotic Giant Branch stars are highly evolved stars that are brightest in K-band. This maximum K-band magnitude is related to the birth mass of stars. As a result, we have found a 9.9 Gyr old single star formation epoch for NGC185 followed by relatively continuous star formation. NGC147, however, has passed through two star formation episodes; one is as old as ~6 Gyr and the other is as recent as ~850 Myr. Asymptotic Giant Branch stars are also important dust factories; by fitting Spectral Energy Distributions to observed near and mid infrared data for each star, we were able to measure the dust production rates of individual stars; on order of $10^{-5}M_{\odot}yr^{-1}$. Hence, we estimate the total mass entering the interstellar medium to be $1.06{\times}10^{-4}M_{\odot}yr^{-1}$ and $2.89{\times}10^{-4}M_{\odot}yr^{-1}$ for NGC147 and NGC185.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.30 no.2
• /
• pp.89-91
• /
• 2015

Observed spectra of stars around the Sun have indicated that the Sun is located in a gas cavity, extending to 100pc. This gas cavity is called the "Local Bubble". The density of the interstellar medium (ISM) in the local bubble is about one tenth that of the average for the ISM in the Milky Way. Furthermore, some structures such as gas planes and strings in the local bubble are probably the result of supernovae. These, due to their low temperatures, can not be observed in the visible and infrared. The only way to do so is to measure the spectra of nearby stars so that the light of stars passing through the local bubble is absorbed by existing gas and the resulting spectral lines from absorption can be measured. In this study, we use binary stars to trace the local bubble structures through lines such as the Na I Doublet. First, we determined the observed spectral lines of stars by HARPS and FEROS echelle spectrographs. Then, we made synthetic spectra with the ATLAS9 code. Finally, the difference between the observational and synthetic spectra confirms the existence of the Na I Doublet in the local ISM.