• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.357-364
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• 2015

We observe ten known 22GHz H₂O maser galaxies during February 19-22, 2011 using the 21 m Tamna telescope of the Korean VLBI Network and a new wide-band digital spectrometer. Simultaneously we searched for 43GHz SiO v = 1, 2, J = 1-0 maser emission. We detect H₂O maser emission towards five sources (M 33, NGC 1052, NGC 1068, NGC 4258, M 82), with non-detections towards the remaining sources (UGC 3193, UGC 3789, Antennae H₂O-West, M 51, NGC 6323) likely due to sensitivity. Our 22GHz spectra are consistent with earlier findings. Our simultaneous 43GHz SiO maser search produced non-detections, yielding - for the first time - upper limits on the 43GHz SiO maser emission in these sources at a 3 σ sensitivity level of 0.018K-0.033K (0.24 Jy-0.44 Jy) in a 1.75 km s⁻¹ velocity resolution. Our findings suggest that any 43GHz SiO masers in these sources (some having starburst-associated H₂O kilomasers) must be faint compared to the 22GHz H₂O maser emission.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.65.2-66
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• 2021

Observational studies of supernova (SN) feedback are limited. In our galaxy, most supernova remnants (SNRs) are located in the Galactic plane, so there is contamination from foreground/background sources. SNRs located in other galaxies are too far, so we cannot study them in detail. The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a unique place to study the SN feedback due to their proximity, which makes possible to study the structure of individual SNRs in some detail together with their environment. Recently, we carried out a systematic study of 13 LMC SNRs using [P II] (1.189 ㎛) and [Fe II] (1.257 ㎛) narrowband imaging with SIRIUS/IRSF, four SNRs (SN 1987A, N158A, N157B and N206), show [P II]/[Fe II] ratio much higher than the cosmic abundance. While the high ratio of SN 1987A could be due to enhanced abundance in SN ejecta, we do not have a clear explanation for the other cases. We investigate the [P II] knots found in SNRs N206, N157B and N158A, using optical spectra obtained last November with GMOS-S mounted on Gemini-South telescope. We detected several emission lines (e.g., H I, [O I], He I, [O III], [N II] and [S II]) that are present in all three SNRs, among other lines that are only found in some of them (e.g., [Ne III], [Fe III] and [Fe II]). Various line ratios are measured from the three SNRs, which indicate that the ratios of N157B tend to differ from those of other two SNRs. We will use the abundances of He and N (from the detection of [N II] and He I emission lines), together with velocity measurements to tell whether the origin of the [P II] knots are SN ejecta or CSM/ISM. For this purpose we have built a family of radiative shock with self-consistent pre-ionization using MAPPINGS 5.1.18, with shock velocities in the range of 100 to 475 km/s. We will compare the observed and modeled line fluxes for different depletion factors.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.50.2-51
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• 2021

Stars form exclusively in cold and dense molecular clouds. To fully understand star formation processes, it is hence a key to investigate how molecular clouds form out of the surrounding diffuse atomic gas. With an aim of shedding light in the process of the atomic-to-molecular transition in the interstellar medium, we analyze Arecibo HI emission and absorption spectral pairs along with TRAO/PMO 12CO(1-0) emission spectra toward 58 lines of sight probing in and around molecular clouds in the solar neighborhood, i.e., Perseus, Taurus, and California. 12CO(1-0) is detected from 19 out of 58 lines of sight, and we report the physical properties of HI (e.g., central velocity, spin temperature, and column density) in the vicinity of CO. Our preliminary results show that the velocity difference between the cold HI (Cold Neutral Medium or CNM) and CO (median ~ 0.7 km/s) is on average more than a factor of two smaller than the velocity difference between the warm HI (Warm Neutral Medium or WNM) and CO (median ~ 1.7 km/s). In addition, we find that the CNM tends to become colder (median spin temperature ~ 43 K) and abundant (median CNM fraction ~ 0.55) as it gets closer to CO. These results hints at the evolution of the CNM in the vicinity of CO, implying a close association between the CNM and molecular gas. Finally, in order to examine the role of HI in the formation of molecular gas, we compare the observed CNM properties to the theoretical model by Bialy & Sternberg (2016), where the HI column density for the HI-to-H2 transition point is predicted as a function of density, metallicity, and UV radiation field. Our comparison shows that while the model reproduces the observations reasonably well on average, the observed CNM components with high column densities are much denser than the model prediction. Several sources of this discrepancy, e.g., missing physical and chemical ingredients in the model such as the multi-phase ISM, non-equilibrium chemistry, and turbulence, will be discussed.