• 천문학회지
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• 제46권3호
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• pp.133-140
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• 2013

The empirical mass discrepancy-acceleration (MDA) relation of disk galaxies provides a key test for models of galactic dynamics. In terms of modified laws of gravity and/or inertia, the MDA relation quantifies the transition from Newtonian to modified dynamics at low centripetal accelerations $a_c{\lesssim}10^{-10}ms^{-2}$. As yet, neither dynamical models based on dark matter nor proposed modifications of the laws of gravity/inertia have predicted the functional form of the MDA relation. In this work, I revisit the MDA data and compare them to four different theoretical scaling laws. Three of these scaling laws are entirely empirical; the fourth one - the "simple ${\mu}$" function of Modified Newtonian Dynamics - derives from a toy model of gravity based on massive gravitons (the "graviton picture"). All theoretical MDA relations comprise one free parameter of the dimension of an acceleration, Milgrom's constant aM. I find that the "simple ${\mu}$" function provides a good fit to the data free of notable systematic residuals and provides the best fit among the four scaling laws tested. The best-fit value of Milgrom's constant is $a_M=(1.06{\pm}0.05){\times}10^{-10}ms^{-2}$. Given the successful prediction of the functional form of the MDA relation, plus an overall agreement with the observed kinematics of stellar systems spanning eight orders of magnitude in size and 14 orders of magnitude in mass, I conclude that the "graviton picture" is sufficient (albeit probably not a necessary nor unique approach) to describe galactic dynamics on all scales well beyond the scale of the solar system. This suggests that, at least on galactic scales, gravity behaves as if it was mediated by massive particles.

• 천문학회지
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• 제49권5호
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• pp.193-198
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• 2016

Early-type galaxies (ETGs) are supposed to follow the virial relation $M=k_e{\sigma}^2R_e/G$, with M being the mass, σ_* being the stellar velocity dispersion, R_e being the effective radius, G being Newton's constant, and k_e being the virial factor, a geometry factor of order unity. Applying this relation to (a) the ATLAS^3D sample of Cappellari et al. (2013) and (b) the sample of Saglia et al. (2016) gives ensemble-averaged factors 〈k_e〉 = 5.15 ± 0.09 and 〈k_e〉 = 4.01 ± 0.18, respectively, with the difference arising from different definitions of effective velocity dispersions. The two datasets reveal a statistically significant tilt of the empirical relation relative to the theoretical virial relation such that $M{\propto}({\sigma}^2_*R_e)^{0.92}$. This tilt disappears when replacing R_e with the semi-major axis of the projected half-light ellipse, a. All best-fit scaling relations show zero intrinsic scatter, implying that the mass plane of ETGs is fully determined by the virial relation. Whenever a comparison is possible, my results are consistent with, and confirm, the results by Cappellari et al. (2013). The difference between the relations using either a or R_e arises from a known lack of highly elliptical high-mass galaxies; this leads to a scaling (1 - ϵ ) ∝ M^0.12, with ϵ being the ellipticity and $R_e=a\sqrt[]{1-{\epsilon}}$. Accordingly, a, not R_e, is the correct proxy for the scale radius of ETGs. By geometry, this implies that early-type galaxies are axisymmetric and oblate in general, in agreement with published results from modeling based on kinematics and light distributions.

• 천문학회보
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• 제45권1호
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• pp.61.4-62
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• 2020

We present H I gas kinematics and star formation activities of NGC 6822, a dwarf galaxy located in the Local Volume at a distance of ~490 kpc. We perform profile decomposition of the line-of-sight velocity profiles of the high-resolution (~42.4" × 12") spatial; ~1.6 km/s spectral) H I data cube taken with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). For this, we use a new tool, the so-called BAYGAUD (BAYesian GAUssian Decompositor) which is based on Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques, allowing us to decompose a line-of-sight velocity profile into an optimal number of Gaussian components in a quantitative manner. We classify the decomposed H I gas components of NGC 6822 into kinematically cold, warm or hot ones with respect to their velocity dispersion: 1) cold: < 4 km/s, 2) warm: 4 ~ 8 km/s, 3) hot: > 8 km/s. We then derive the Toomre-Q parameters of NGC 6822 using the kinematically decomposed H I gas maps. We also correlate their gas surface densities with the surface star formation rates derived using both GALEX far-ultraviolet and WISE 22 micron data to examine the impact of gas turbulence caused by stellar feedback on the Kennicutt-Schmidt (K-S) law. The kinematically cold component is likely to better follow the linear extension of the Kennicutt-Schmidt (K-S) law for molecular hydrogen (H2) at the low gas surface density regime where H I is not saturated.

• 천문학회보
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• 제40권1호
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• pp.76.2-76.2
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• 2015

We present the results of the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) HI imaging study of seven late-type galaxies. They are located in the outskirts of the Virgo cluster, possibly along a filament connected to Virgo from the north-west. Most galaxies in this region are found to be HI-rich, containing more HI gas compared to field galaxies with similar size and optical luminosity. The positions of the sample with respect to the cluster and their high HI mass-to-light ratios suggest that the selected galaxies might be accreting more gas from their surroundings while falling into the cluster. By high-resolution HI imaging, we aim to find evidence that galaxies are pre-processed by gas accretion from the intergalactic medium and/or gas-rich neighbors. We probe the detailed HI morphology/kinematics and the star formation properties of the sample. All of these galaxies are found with a large HI disk which is quite extended compared to their stellar disk. Together with kinematical peculiarities, this strongly suggests that cold gas accretion is responsible for active star formation in these galaxies.

• 천문학회지
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• 제43권4호
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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.

• 천문학회지
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• 제46권4호
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• pp.173-181
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• 2013

We trace the dynamical evolution of dark matter (DM) content in NGC 6397, one of the native Galactic globular clusters (GCs). The relatively strong tidal field (Galactocentric radius of ~ 6 kpc) and short relaxation timescale (~0.3 Gyr) of the cluster can cause a significant amount of DM particles to evaporate from the cluster in the Hubble time. Thus, the cluster can initially contain a non-negligible amount of DM. Using the most advanced Fokker-Planck (FP) method, we calculate the dynamical evolution of GCs for numerous initial conditions to determine the maximum initial DM content in NGC 6397 that matches the present-day brightness and velocity dispersion profiles of the cluster. We find that the maximum allowed initial DM mass is slightly less than the initial stellar mass in the cluster. Our findings imply that NGC 6397 did not initially contain a significant amount of DM, and is similar to that of NGC 2419, the remotest and the most massive Galactic GC.

• 천문학회보
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• 제39권2호
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• pp.113.2-113.2
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• 2014

Methanol masers are divided into two classes, I and II. Class II methanol masers trace the disk-outflow systems of massive young stellar objects (YSOs), while class I methanol masers appear to trace the interaction regions of outflows with the ambient molecular gas. Class II masers have been extensively studied by single dishes, connected arrays, and VLBIs. Meanwhile, class I masers have been much less studied. They have not been detected by any VLBI facility. Thus they have been believed to have more extended structures than class II masers. We made fringe surveys of 44GHz class I methanol maser emission towards more than 150 massive YSOs with flux densities >10 Jy using the Korean VLBI Network (KVN), and detected fringes in ~10% of the sources. We performed follow-up imaging observations of the detected maser sources with KVN and KVN+VERA (KaVA). The observations aim to investigate the distribution and kinematics of 44GHz methanol maser features in each source at milli-arcsecond resolutions, and to understand what they trace. In this talk we will present the fringe survey and imaging results and our plans for further studies. Additionally, we will also introduce the preliminary results of single-dish polarization observations of water and class I methanol masers.

• 천문학회보
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• 제39권2호
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• pp.89-89
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• 2014

While the current consensus view holds that galaxy mergers are commonplace, it is sometimes speculated that Globular Clusters (GCs) may also have undergone merging events, possibly resulting in massive objects with a strong metallicity spread such as Omega Centauri. Galaxies are mostly far, unresolved systems whose mergers are most likely wet, resulting in observational as well as modeling difficulties, but GCs are resolved into stars that can be used as discrete dynamical tracers, and their mergers might have been dry, therefore easily simulated with an N-body code. It is however difficult to determine the observational parameters best suited to reveal a history of merging based on the positions and kinematics of GC stars, if evidence of merging is at all observable. To overcome this difficulty, we investigate the applicability of supervised and unsupervised machine learning to the automatic reconstruction of the dynamical history of a stellar system. In particular we test whether statistical clustering methods can classify simulated systems into monolithic versus merger products. We run direct N-body simulations of two identical King-model clusters undergoing a head-on collision resulting in a merged system, and other simulations of isolated King models with the same total number of particles as the merged system. After several relaxation times elapse, we extract a sample of snapshots of the sky-projected positions of particles from each simulation at different dynamical times, and we run a variety of clustering and classification algorithms to classify the snapshots into two subsets in a relevant feature space.

• 천문학회보
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• 제39권2호
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• pp.58.1-58.1
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• 2014

Energetic gas outflows from active galactic nuclei (AGNs) may have a crucial role in galaxy evolution. In this contribution, we present a census of ionized gas outflows using a large sample (~23,000) of local (z < 0.1) type-2 AGNs selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey DR 7. By measuring the velocity offset of narrow emission lines, i.e., [O III] ${\lambda}5007$ and the Balmer lines, with respect to the systemic velocity measured from the stellar absorption lines, we find ~47% of AGNs showing an [O III] line-of-sight velocity offset ${\geq}20km\;s-1$. The fraction in type-2 AGNs is similar to that in type-1 AGNs after considering the projection effect. AGNs with larger [O III] velocity offsets, in particular with no or weak $H{\alpha}$ velocity offsets, tend to have higher Eddington ratios, implying that the [O III] velocity offset is related to on-going black hole activity. Also, we find the different distributions of the host galaxy inclination between the AGNs with blueshifted [O III] and the AGNs with redshifted [O III], supporting the model of biconical outflow with dust obscuration. Meanwhile, for ~3% of AGNs, [O III] and $H{\alpha}$ exhibit comparable large velocity offsets, suggesting a more complex gas kinematics than decelerating outflows in the narrow-line region.

• 천문학회보
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• 제39권2호
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• pp.49-49
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• 2014

Blue Compact Dwarf galaxies (BCDs) are low-mass galaxies with recently enhanced star formation activity. Since the discovery of old stellar population in the BCDs, a number of hypotheses have been suggested as the origin of the current active star formation. One theory is tidal interactions such as fly-by and merger. In this study we test this hypothesis using a pair of BCDs, ESO 435-IG20 and ESO 435-IG16 that are separate by only ~80 kpc in projection at a similar redshift (at a ~9 Mpc distance). In the HIPASS survey, intergalactic atomic hydrogen envelope has been found to be covering both galaxies, making the pair a good candidate for the case where the star formation has been triggered by tidal interaction. We probe the gas morphology and kinematics of the BCD pair using ATCA HI data in order to find the evidence of tidal interaction. We also estimate star formation rates in the pair based on Ha emission and UV continuum, and compare with other dwarf galaxies to investigate how responsible the tidal interaction is for the enhanced star formation in this case.