• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2007

About 10 percent of quasars are known to exhibit deep broad absorption troughs blueward of prominent permitted emission lines, which are usually attributed to the existence of outflows slightly above he accretion disk around the supermassive black hole. Typical widths up to 0.2c of these absorption roughs indicate the velocity scales in which special relativistic effects may not be negligible. Under he assumption of the ubiquity of the broad absorption line region in quasars, the broad emission line flux will exhibit Thomson scattered components from these fast outflows. In this paper, we provide our Monte Carlo calculation of linear polarization of singly Thomson scattered line radiation with the careful considerations of special relativistic effects. The scattering region is approximated by a collection of rings that are moving outward with speeds ${\upsilon}=c{\beta}<0.2c$ near the equatorial plane, and the scattered line photons are collected according to its direction and wavelength in the observer's rest frame. We find that the significantly extended red tail appears in the scattered radiation. We also find that the linear degree of polarization of singly Thomson scattered line radiation is wavelength-dependent and hat there are significant differences in the linear degree of polarization from that computed from classical physics in the far red tail. We propose that the semi-forbidden broad emission line C III]1909 may be significantly contributed from Thomson scattering because this line has small resonance scattering optical depth in the broad absorption line region, which leads to distinct and significant polarized flux in this broad emission line.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.75.3-75.3
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• 2015

Large area infrared surveys are often accompanied with follow-up optical spectroscopic surveys that has a significant legacy value even for other areas of research. Using these spectral database, we have performed a search for MgII absorption lines in the optical spectrum of background quasar. Over the ~4deg2 of AKARI North Ecliptic Pole survey field and Spitzer First Look Survey field, 18 and 16 MgII absorber systems are identified respectively. The redshift range for the background quasars was 1.0<$z_{qso}$<3.4, while the redshift range for the absorber was 0.6<$z_{abs}$<1.6. Galaxies responsible for MgII absorptions are identified in the deep optical images (CFHT r-band), yet the identification still remains ambiguous for 60% of the systems due to the limited image depth and the source crowdedness. The impact parameter ranges 20-60kpc, and the rest-frame equivalent width of MgII absorption ranges $0.7-4{\AA}$. The most critical part in the identification of MgII absorber galaxies is the existence of deep optical images in addition to the high S/N quasar spectrum with R>3000.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.50 no.6
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• pp.185-190
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• 2017

We present observations of $HCO^+$ 1-0 absorption lines toward two extragalactic compact radio sources, NRAO 150 and BL Lac with the Korean VLBI Network in order to investigate their time variation over 20 years by Galactic foreground clouds. It is found that the line shape of $-17kms^{-1}$ component changed marginally during 1993-1998 period and has remained unaltered thereafter for NRAO 150. Its behavior is different from that of $H_2CO$ $1_{10}-1_{11}$, suggesting chemical differentiation on ~ 20 AU scale, the smallest ever seen. On the other hand, BL Lac exhibits little temporal variation for the $HCO^+$ and $H_2CO$ lines. Our observation also suggests that Korea VLBI Network performs reliably in the spectrum mode in that the shapes of the new $HCO^+$ 1-0 spectra are in good agreement with the previous ones to an accuracy of a few percent except the time varying component toward NRAO 150.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.36.1-36.1
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• 2016

The physical scenario describing the origin of quasar winds remains largely unsettled due to our failure to account for X-ray weak BAL quasars. We approach this problem by studying the relation between the inner part of the outflow which is likely to be shielding the X-ray emission and thereby helping to drive the UV winds characterised by broad absorption lines (BALs). In particular, we aim to probe the wind-shield connection in the highly X-ray variable BAL quasar PG 2112+059, which has exhibited periods of X-ray weakness and X-ray normality in the past. A set of two 20 ks Chandra observations and two contemporaneous HST observations, separated by at least eight months, combined with a nearly simultaneous archival Chandra-HST observation from 2002, afford us a unique opportunity to study the connection between the shield (which is thought to be responsible for the X-ray absorption) and the ionisation state of the wind (observed as UV BAL features; e.g., C IV and O VI lines) over various timescales.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.68.2-68.2
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• 2018

Spectroscopic observations commonly use a slit or fiber; however, non-slit spectroscopy enables us to observe a larger number of targets in one frame of image. Hence, it has been adopted as an observational mode for observatories like HST and JWST. Slitless spectroscopy requires wavelength calibration solutions in order to distinguish and measure the absorption / emission lines from the spectra with high accuracy. We installed the Volume Phase Holographic (VPH) grating to SQUEAN camera on the McDonald 2.1m telescope and obtained images with spectral resolutions of ~ 100 and 200. In order to derive the wavelength calibration, we measured the distances between the 0th order images and spectral features of various quasars. The distances are converted to wavelengths using the known wavelengths of the emission lines. We tested several different methods of spectral extraction and peak estimation of emission lines. We will present the results for the wavelength calibration and suggest the reliable methods to find the solution.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.187-193
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• 2014

Recent cosmological observations indicate that the reionized universe may have started at around z = 6, where a significant suppression around $Ly{\alpha}$ has been observed from the neutral intergalactic medium. The associated neutral hydrogen column density is expected to exceed $10^{21}cm^{-2}$, where it is very important to use the accurate scattering cross section known as the Kramers-Heisenberg formula that is obtained from the fully quantum mechanical time-dependent second order perturbation theory. We present the Kramers-Heisenberg formula and compare it with the formula introduced in a heuristic way by Peebles (1993) considering the hydrogen atom as a two-level atom, from which we find a deviation by a factor of two in the red wing region far from the line center. Adopting a representative set of cosmological parameters, we compute the Gunn-Peterson optical depths and absorption profiles. Our results are quantitatively compared with previous work by Madau & Rees (2000), who adopted the Peebles approximation in their radiative transfer problems. We find deviations up to 5 per cent in the Gunn-Peterson transmission coefficient for an accelerated expanding universe in the red off-resonance wing part with the rest wavelength ${\Delta}{\lambda}{\sim}10{\AA}$.