• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.83.1-83.1
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• 2014

Open clusters consisting of a co-spatial and coeval population with a similar chemical composition are a superb astrophysical test bed in both stellar and galactic astronomy. We introduce not only several scientific issues relating to these objects but also comprehensive studies of the two young open clusters Westerlund 1 and IC 1848 formed in extremely different star-forming conditions. Westerlund 1 is known as the most massive starburst cluster in the Galaxy. Located in the Scutum-Centaurus spiral arm, the cluster is relatively close to the Galactic Center. The apparent surface density is very high. On the other hand, IC 1848 is a core cluster within the large-scale star-forming region W5 lying in the Perseus arm. Unlike Westerlund 1, IC 1848 with a putatively low metallicity exhibits a low surface density. We present the fundamental parameters of those young clusters, such as reddening, distance, and age, obtained from the broadband photometric analysis. The stellar initial mass function (IMF) of the clusters is used to investigate the effects of the different star-forming conditions on the star formation activity. With the results of previous studies for several young open clusters, our preliminary results support a possibility that star formation activity may be affected by the environmental factors or the initial condition of natal clouds. In addition, we shortly discuss the age scale and spread of pre-main sequence stars to understand the formation processes of star clusters.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.59.4-60
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• 2018

Ultra-diffuse galaxies (UDGs) are an unusual galaxy population. They are ghostlike galaxies with fainter surface brightness than normal dwarf galaxies, but they are as large as MW-like galaxies. The key question on UDGs is whether they are 'failed' giant galaxies or 'extended' dwarf galaxies. To answer this question, we study UDGs in massive galaxy clusters. We find an amount of UDGs in deep HST images of three Hubble Frontier Fields clusters, Abell 2744 (z=0.308), Abell S1063 (z=0.347), and Abell 370 (z=0.374). These clusters are the farthest and most massive galaxy clusters in which UDGs have been discovered until now. The color-magnitude relations show that most UDGs have old stellar population with red colors, while a few of them show bluer colors implying the existence of young stars. The stellar masses of UDGs show that they have less massive stellar components than the bright red sequence galaxies. The radial number density profiles of UDGs exhibit a drop in the central region of clusters, suggesting some of them were disrupted by strong gravitational potential. Their spatial distributions are not homogeneous, which implies UDGs are not virialized enough in the clusters. With virial masses of UDGs estimated from the fundamental manifold, most UDGs have M_200 = 10^10 - 10^11 M_Sun indicating that they are dwarf galaxies. However, a few of UDGs more massive than 10^11 M_Sun indicate that they are close to failed giant galaxies.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.69-103
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• 1984

Five different calibrations of metal abundances of globular clusters are examined and these are compared with metallicity ranking parameters such as $(Sp)_c$, . Q39 and IR-indices. Except for the calibration $[Fe/H]_H$ by the high dispersion echelle analysis. the other calibration scales are correlated with the morphological parameters of red giant branch. In the $[Fe/H]_H$-scale. the clusters later than ${\sim}F8$ have nearly a constant metal abundance. $[Fe/H]_H{\simeq}-1.05$, regradless of morphological characteristics of horizontal branch and red giant branch. By the two fundamental calibration scales of $[Fe/H]_L$ (derived by the low dispersion analysis) and $[Fe/H]_{{\Delta}s}$ (derived by the spectral analysis of RR Lyrae stars). the globular clusters are divided into the halo clusters with [Fe/H]<-1.0 and the disk clusters confined within the galactocentric distance ${\tau}_G=10\;kpc$ and galactic plane distance |z|=3 kpc. In this case the abundance gradient is given by d[Fe/H]/$dr_G{\approx}-0.05\;kpc^{-1}$ and d[Fe/H]/$d|z|{\simeq}-0.08\;kpc^{-1}$ within ${\tau}_G=20\;kpc$ and |z|=10 kpc, respectively. According to these characteristics of the spatial distribution of globular clusters. the chemical evolution of the galactic globular clusters can be accounted for by the two-zone (disk-halo) slow collapse model when the $[Fe/H]_L$-or $[Fe/H]_{{\Delta}s}$-scale is applied. In the case of $[Fe/H]_H$-scale, the one-zone fast collapse model is preferred for the evolution of globular clusters.