• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.77.2-77.2
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• 2017

We investigate star formation activities of ~400 barred and unbarred faced-on late-type galaxies from the SDSS-IV MaNGA (Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO) IFU survey. We find the star formation activities in gas-poor, barred galaxies are considerably suppressed than gas-rich, barred galaxies, while there is no difference among unbarred galaxies regardless of their HI gas content. The gas-poor and barred galaxies show the steeper difference of gradient in metallicity and age with respect to the stellar mass than gas-rich or unbarred galaxies, in that their centre is more metal-rich and younger. The results suggest that, combined with the gas contents available, the bar structure plays a significant role in quenching star formation in a galaxy by transporting/mixing gas via gas inflow.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.55.1-55.1
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• 2017

A number of recent studies have claimed that the double red clump observed in the Milky Way bulge is a consequence of an X-shaped structure. In particular, Ness & Lang (2016) report a direct detection of a faint X-shaped structure in the bulge from the residual map of the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) image. Here we show, however, that their result is seriously affected by a bulge model subtracted from the original image. When a boxy bulge model is subtracted, instead of a simple exponential bulge model as has been done by Ness & Lang, we find that most of the X-shaped structure in the residuals disappears. Furthermore, even if real, the stellar density in the claimed X-shaped structure appears to be too low to be observed as a strong double red clump at $l=0^{\circ}$

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.273-279
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• 2004

Chemical compositions of planetary nebulae are of interest for a study of the late stage of stellar evolution and for elemental contributions to the interstellar medium of reprocessed elements since possibly a large fraction of stars in 0.8 - 8 $M_{\bigodot}$ range go through this stage. One of the methods for getting chemical composition is a construction of theoretical photoionization models, which involves geometrical complexities and a variety of physical processes. With modelling effort, one can analyze the high dispersion and find the elemental abundances for a number of planetary nebulae. The model also gives the physical parameter of planetary nebula and its central star physical parameter along with the knowledge of its evolutionary status. Two planetary nebulae, NGC 7026 and Hu 1-2, which could have evolved from about one solar mass progenitor stars, showed radically different chemical abundances: the former has high chemical abundances in most elements, while the latter has extremely low abundances. We discuss their significance in the light of the evolution of our Galaxy.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.17-39
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• 1999

We investigate dynamical evolution of globular clusters with multi-mass component under the Galactic tidal field. We compare the results with our previous work which considered the cases of single-mass component m the globular clusters. We find the followings: 1) The general evolutions are similar to the cases of single-mass component. 2) There is no evidence for dependence on the orbital phase of the cluster as in the case of single-mass component. 3) The escape rate in multi-mass models is larger than that in the single-mass models. 4) The mass-function depends on radius more sensitively in anisotropic models than in isotropic models.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.58.1-58.1
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• 2019

Gravitational-wave (GW) sources for the next decades would be in majority binaries consisting of neutron stars and/or black holes reside in the extragalactic environment. For example, GW170817 was the first extragalactic neutron star - neutron star binary found by GW observations and it was proved the power of multi-messenger astronomy (MMA) including the KMTNet observations. With the ever increased sensitivity, the $3^{rd}$ observation run (O3) led by the advanced LIGO and advanced Virgo this year aims to search for more 'standard' populations as well as 'exotic' ones expected by stellar evolution. I will present highlights of on-going efforts by researchers in Korea and those in abroad for estimating physical parameters of a source. Mass, spin, distance, and location are prerequisite information to constrain theoretical understanding of the source formation and evolution. Furthermore, these information are to be shared with the international community for follow-up multi-messenger observations. I will present the observational accuracy expected for the future GW observations and discuss their implications. If time allows, I will make a few remarks on prospects of O3 with KAGRA collaborations, which many domestic researchers are closely involved in.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.35.2-35.2
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• 2020

Submillimeter galaxies (SMGs) have played an important role in the understanding of galaxy evolution and cosmic star formation history at high redshift because they are known as being located at z ~ 2 and harbor a vigorous star formation. Therefore studying properties of SMGs can lead us to understand evolution of massive and actively star forming galaxies and distribution of cosmic star formation density. Recently we detected 548 SMGs near North Ecliptic Pole with JCMT/SCUBA-2 from the JCMT large program covering about 2 deg2 so far. To derive their physical parameters, we compiled a multi-wavelength photometry ranging from optical (0.3 ㎛) to submillimeter (850 ㎛) by cross-identifying counterparts at different wavelengths. In order to find counterparts, we used either VLA-1.4 GHz image and/or Spitzer/IRAC 3.6 ㎛, 4.5 ㎛ image. The number of SMGs with relatively robust counterparts is 349. In this talk, we present photometric redshifts, stellar mass, star formation rates, total infrared luminosity, and AGN fraction of these 349 SMGs derived through SED fitting analysis.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.36-36
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• 2013

Globular clusters (GCs) are among the oldest stellar objects in the universe and provide valuable constraints on many aspects of galaxy evolution. GC systems typically exhibit bimodal color distributions the phenomenon of which has been a major topic in the area of GC research. GC color bimodality established a paradigm where scenarios to explain its origin require two GC groups with different formation origins. The GC division, asserted mainly by photometric color bimodality so far, has been viewed as the presence of two distinct metallicity subgroups within individual galaxies. In this study, we make use of spectroscopy of GC systems associated with two giant galaxies, M31 (the Andromeda) and M87 (NGC 4486), to investigate the GC bimodality and the underlying metallicity distributions. Recent spectroscopy on the globular cluster (GC) system of M31 with unprecedented precision witnessed a clear bimodality in absorption-line index distributions of old GCs. Given that spectroscopy is a more detailed probe into stellar population than photometry; the discovery of index bimodality may point to the very existence of dual GC populations. However, here we show that the observed spectroscopic dichotomy of M31 GCs emerges due to the nonlinear nature of metallicity-to-index conversion and thus one does not necessarily have to invoke two separate GC subsystems. We present spectra of 130 old globular clusters (GCs) associated with the Virgo giant elliptical galaxy M87, obtained using the Multi-Object Spectrography (MOS) mode of Faint Object Camera and Spectrograph (FOCAS) on the Subaru telescope. M87 GCs with reliable metallicity measurements exhibit significant inflection along the color-metallicity relations, through which observed color bimodality is reproduced from a broad, unimodal metallicity distribution. Our findings lend further support to this new interpretation of the GC color bimodality, which could change much of the current thought on the formation of GC systems and their host galaxies.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.65-65
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• 2011

Early-type galaxies represent the end point of galaxy evolution and, despite pervasive residual star formation, are generally considered "red and dead", that is composed exclusively of old stars with no star formation. Here, their molecular gas content is constrained and discussed in relation to their evolution, supporting the continuing importance of minor mergers and/or cold gas accretion. First, as part of the Atlas3D survey, the first complete, large, volume-limited survey of CO in normal early-type galaxies is presented. At least of 23% of local early-types possess a substantial amount of molecular gas, the necessary ingredient for star formation, independent of mass and environment but dependent on the specific stellar angular momentum. Second, using CO synthesis imaging, the extent of the molecular gas is constrained and a variety of morphologies is revealed. The kinematics of the molecular gas and stars are often misaligned, implying an external gas origin in over a third of all systems, more than half in the field, while external gas accretion must be shot down in clusters. Third, many objects appear to be in the process of forming regular kpc-size decoupled disks, and a star formation sequence can be sketched by piecing together multi-wavelength information on the molecular gas, current star formation, and young stars. Fourth, early-type galaxies do not seem to systematically obey all our usual prejudices regarding star formation (e.g. Schmidt-Kennicutt law, far infrared-radio continuum correlation), suggesting a greater diversity in star formation processes than observed in disk galaxies and the possibility of "morphological quenching". Lastly, a first step toward constraining the physical properties of the molecular gas is taken, by modeling the line ratios of density- and opacity-sensitive molecules in a few objects. Taken together, these observations argue for the continuing importance of (minor) mergers and cold gas accretion in local early-types, and they provide a much greater understanding of the gas cycle in the galaxies harbouring most of the stellar mass. In the future, better dust masses and dust-to-gas mass ratios from Herschel should allow to place entirely independent constraints on the gas supply, while spatially-resolved high-density molecular gas tracers observed with ALMA will probe the interstellar medium and star formation laws locally in a regime entirely different from that normally probed in spiral galaxies.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.23-36
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• 2022

We present a method to determine nitrogen abundance ratios with respect to iron ([N/Fe]) from molecular CN-band features observed in low-resolution (R ~ 2000) stellar spectra obtained by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST). Various tests are carried out to check the systematic and random errors of our technique, and the impact of signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios of stellar spectra on the determined [N/Fe]. We find that the uncertainty of our derived [N/Fe] is less than 0.3 dex for S/N ratios larger than 10 in the ranges T_eff = [4000, 6000] K, log g = [0.0, 3.5], [Fe/H] = [-3.0, 0.0], [C/Fe] = [-1.0, +4.5], and [N/Fe] = [-1.0, +4.5], the parameter space that we are interested in to identify N-enhanced stars in the Galactic halo. A star-by-star comparison with a sample of stars with [N/Fe] estimates available from the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) also suggests a similar level of uncertainty in our measured [N/Fe], after removing its systematic error. Based on these results, we conclude that our method is able to reproduce [N/Fe] from low-resolution spectroscopic data, with an uncertainty sufficiently small to discover N-rich stars that presumably originated from disrupted Galactic globular clusters.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.105-113
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• 2010

We study the dynamical evolution of the M87 globular cluster (GC) system using the most advanced and realistic Fokker-Planck (FP) model.By comparing our FP models with both mass function (MF) and radial distribution (RD) of the observed GC system, we find the best-fit initial (at M87's age of 2-3 Gyr) MF and RD for three GC groups: all GCs, blue GCs, and red GCs. We estimate the initial total mass in GCs to be $1.8^{+0.3}_{-0.2}{\times}10^{10}M_{\bigodot}$, which is about 100 times larger than that of the Milky Way GC system. We also find that the fraction of the total mass currently in GCs is 34\%. When blue and red GCs are fitted separately, blue GCs initially have a larger total mass and a shallower radial distribution than red GCs. If one assumes that most of the significant major merger events of M87 have ended by the age of 2-3 Gyr, our finding that blue (metal-poor) GCs initially had a shallower radial distribution supports the major merger scenario for the origin of metallicity bimodality.