• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.70.2-70.2
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• 2016

Star formation in galaxies is one of the key factors in galaxy evolution. It is believed that star formation is triggered and enhanced by mergers among galaxies or secular evolution. However, how much these two mechanisms contribute on star formation is not well known yet. Recently, many other studies show observational evidences of faint merger features(tidal tails, stellar streams) around nearby galaxies with deep optical imaging. This study aims to investigate the fraction of star forming galaxies exhibiting faint features to total galaxies. We are analyzing samples of 76 star forming galaxies (NUV < -18) to find merger features from stacked B, R band frames taken at Maidanak 1.5m, McDonald 2.1m telescope and g, r frames from Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) MegaCam archival data. With the fraction, we can expect to know the contribution of mergers on star formation to galaxies.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.39.2-39.2
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• 2013

We use grid-based hydrodynamic simulations to study star formation history in nuclear rings of barred-spiral galaxies. In our previous study, we concentrated on bar-only galaxies without spirals, finding that the star formation rate (SFR) in a nuclear ring exhibits a strong primary burst at early time before decreasing to below 1 $M_{\odot}/yr$ at late time. The rapid decline is caused by the paucity of the gas in the bar region, due to early massive gas inflows to the nuclear ring. Since star formation in nuclear rings is observed to be sustained for about 1-2 Gyr, this requires mechanisms to supply the gas to the bar regions. In this work, we study the effect of spiral arms on the radial gas inflows and related star formation in the nuclear rings. We show that spiral arms are efficient to remove angular momentum of the gas to cause significant gas inflows to the bar region, provided the patten speed of the arms is much smaller than that of the bar. The inflowing gas is added to a nuclear ring, making the ring SFR episodic over a long period of time. The time interval of multiple bursts of star formation is a few tens to hundred million years, with the mean peak SFR of ${\sim}5M_{\odot}/yr$, consistent with observations of M100.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.39.2-40
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• 2016

The molecular gas surrounding an H II region is thought to be a place where star formation can be induced. Such triggered star formation can arise form the overpressurization of existing density enhancements or thought the collapse of a swept up layers of material. In this talk, We will discuss the results of a study of star-formation activity associated with the outer Galaxy ring-shaped H II regions KR 7, KR 81, KR 120 and KR 140 using archival Spitzer and WISE data along with the JHK observations. We used CO data cubes from the FCRAO and TRAO in order to define extent of the molecular cloud associated each HII region. Using the infrared data sets, We identified and classified YSO populations within each molecular cloud using measures such as the class I/II ratio and YSO spatial density. Along with this, one of the main question in the study of star formation is how protostar accrete material from their parent molecular clouds and observations of infall motions are needed to provide direct evidence for accretion. Combining our observation of the YSO population distribution with time scales associated with YSO evolution and HII expansion, we investigated the possible significance of triggered star formation in the molecular cloud surrounding each region.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.40.1-40.1
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• 2019

We utilize times since infall of cluster galaxies obtained from Yonsei Zoom-in Cluster Simulation (YZiCS), the cosmological hydrodynamic N-body simulations, and star formation rates from the SDSS data release 10 to study how quickly late-type galaxies are quenched in the cluster environments. In particular, we confirm that the distributions of both simulated and observed galaxies in phase-space diagrams are comparable and that each location of phase-space can provide the information of times since infall and star formation rates of cluster galaxies. Then, by limiting the location of phase-space of simulated and observed galaxies, we associate their star formation rates at z ~ 0.08 with times since infall using an abundance matching technique that employs the 10 quantiles of each probability distribution. Using a flexible quenching model covering different quenching scenarios, we find the star formation history of satellite galaxies that best reproduces the obtained relationship between time since infall and star formation rate at z ~ 0.08. Based on the derived star formation history, we constrain the quenching timescale (2 - 7 Gyr) with a clear stellar mass trend and confirm that the refined model is consistent with the "delayed-then-rapid" quenching scenario: the constant delayed phase as ~ 2.3 Gyr and the quenching efficiencies (i.e., e-folding timescale) outside and inside clusters as ~ 2 - 4 Gyr (${\propto}M_*^{-1}$) and 0.5 - 1.5 Gyr (${\propto}M_*^{-2}$), Finally, we suggest: (i) ram-pressure is the main driver of quenching of satellite galaxies for the local Universe, (ii) the quenching trend on stellar mass at z > 0.5 indicates other quenching mechanisms as the main driver.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.51.2-51.2
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• 2021

Nuclear rings are sites of intense star formation at the center of barred spiral galaxies. A straightforward but unanswered question is what controls star formation rate (SFR) in nuclear rings. To understand how the ring SFR is related to mass inflow rate, gas content, and background gravitational field, we run a series of semi-global hydrodynamic simulations of nuclear rings, adopting the TIGRESS framework to handle radiative heating and cooling as well as star formation and supernova feedback. We find: 1) when the mass inflow rate is constant, star formation proceeds in a remarkably steady fashion, without showing any burst-quench behavior suggested in the literature; 2) the steady state SFR has a simple linear relationship with the inflow rate rather than the ring gas mass; 3) the midplane pressure balances the weight of the overlying gas and the SFR surface density is linearly correlated with the midplane pressure, consistent with the self-regulated star formation theory. We suggest that the ring SFR is controlled by the mass inflow rate in the first place, while the gas mass adjusts to the resulting feedback in the course of achieving the vertical dynamical equilibrium.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.41.1-41.1
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• 2015

Hierarchical galaxy formation models under LCDM cosmology predict that the most massive structures such as galaxy clusters (M > $10^{14}M_{\odot}$) appear late (z < 1) in the history of the universe through hierarchical clustering of small objects. Galaxy formation is also expected to be accelerated in overdense environments, with the star formation rate-density relation to be established at z ~ 2. In this talk, we present our search of massive structures of galaxies at 0.7 < z < 4, using the data from GOODS survey and our own imaging survey, Infrared Medium-deep Survey (IMS). From these studies, we find that there are excess of massive structures of galaxies at z > 2 in comparison to the Millennium simulation data. At 1 < z < 2, the number density of massive structures is consistent with the simulation data, but the star formation history is more or less identical between field and cluster. The star formation quenching process is dominated by internal process (stellar mass). The environmental effect becomes important only at z < 1, which contributes to create the well known star formation-density relation in the local universe. Our results suggest that galaxy formation models under LCDM cosmology may require further refinements to match the observation.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.54.3-55
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• 2018

We present the physical and environmental properties of nearby dwarf elliptical-like galaxies. The present sample consists of ~ 1,100 dwarf elliptical-like galaxies within redshifts 0.01. The morphological types of the present study were determined by Ann, Seo, and Ha (2015) who classified the dwarf elliptical-like galaxies by the five subtypes of dS0, dE, dSph, dEbc, and dEblue. We examine their star formation history using STARLIGHT. The star formation history of dwarf elliptical-like galaxies depends on their subtypes. The luminosities of dS0, dE, and dSph galaxies are dominated by the extremely old stars (${\geq}10^{10}yr$) with $z{\approx}0.0004$ while those of dEbc and dEblue galaxies are mainly due to the young (${\sim}10^7yr$) stars together with the nearly equal contribution by extremely young stars (${\sim}10^6yr$) and old (${\sim}10^9yr$) stars. Young populations have a variety of metallicity, from z=0.0001 to z = 0.04, while old populations have metallicity of z = 0.0001 and z = 0.0004. While the formation history of stars older than ~1010yr depends mainly on the luminosity of galaxies, the formation history of stars younger than ~108yr is mainly affected by their environment. However, luminosity and environment are equally important for the star formation history if there is no star formation at the early phase of galaxy formation.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.69.1-69.1
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• 2012

We present a comprehensive study of star-forming regions and young star clusters in M33. We use GALEX far-UV and near-UV imaging to detect these young stellar populations tracing recent star formation across the disk of M33. The GALEX imaging, combining deep sensitivity and entire coverage of the galaxy, provides a complete view of the recent star formation in M33 and its variation with environment throughout the galaxy. We discuss variation of various properties (e.g., age, mass, spatial distribution) of star-forming regions and young star clusters in M33 which allow to provide constraints of recent star formation history of this galaxy.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.31.1-31.1
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• 2020

A merger or interaction between galaxy clusters is one of the most violent events in the universe. Thus, an interacting cluster is an optimum laboratory to understand how galaxy properties are influenced by a drastic change of the large-scale environment. Here, we present the observational evidence that bars in disk galaxies can form by cluster-cluster interaction and the bar formation is associated with star-formation enhancement. We investigated 105 galaxy clusters at 0.015

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.65.1-65.1
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• 2014

We present Palomar/SWIFT integral field spectroscopy of z~0.2 strong $H{\alpha}$ emitters identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The large Halpha equivalent widths as well as the huge specific star formation rates of these galaxies are comparable with that of z>4 Lyman break galaxies, thus understanding the gas kinematics and the distribution of massive stars in these systems will help to obtain a better understanding of high-redshift star forming environments and the growth of massive galaxies. We measure the velocity dispersion across the entire galaxy, estimate the number density and the spatial distribution of massive stars from the emission line morphologies. The role of minor mergers in powering star formation is investigated as an alternative to cold flow driven star formation.