• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.75.1-75.1
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• 2017

Ram pressure due to the intracluster medium (ICM) is known to play a crucial role in removing the cool gas content of a galaxy on a short timescale, potentially driving a star forming galaxy to evolve into a red passive population. Although many HI imaging studies find clear evidence of diffuse atomic gas stripping from cluster galaxies, it is still debatable whether the ram pressure can also strip dense molecular gas. NGC 4522, a Virgo spiral, undergoing strong ram pressure stripping, is one of the few cases where extraplanar CO emission together with stripped HI gas and $H{\alpha}$ knots has been identified, providing an ideal laboratory to study the molecular gas stripping event and the extraplanar star formation activity. The aim of this work is to investigate the origin of extraplanar molecular clouds near NGC 4522 (e.g. stripped or forming in situ), and to probe a relation between the molecular gas surface density and the star formation rate (i.e. the Kennicutt-Schmidt law) at sub-kpc scale, especially in the extraplanar space, using ALMA Cycle 3 CO data and $H{\alpha}$ data of NGC 4522. We present the results from our ALMA observations, and discuss possible scenarios for the origin of extraplanar molecular clouds and to characterize the star formation activity associated with stripped gas outside the galactic disk.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.31.3-32
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• 2020

The surface brightness fluctuation (SBF) is one of the most crucial distance indicators for unresolved stellar systems at large distances. Here, we present an evolutionary population synthesis model of the surface brightness fluctuation (SBF) for normal and He-enriched simple stellar populations (SSPs). Our SBF model for the normal-He population agrees well with other existing models, but the He-rich populations bring about a substantial change in the SBF of SSPs. Our normal-He SBF model well reproduces the observed SBFs of the Milky Way globular clusters, but the SBFs of early-type galaxies in the Virgo Cluster are placed between the normal-He and He-rich SBF models. We show that the SBF-based distance estimation would be affected by up to a 10-20% level in I- and near-IR bands at given colors. Finally, we propose that when combined with independent metallicity and age indicators such as Mg2 and H��, the UV and optical SBFs can readily detect underlying He-rich populations in unresolved stellar systems. Given the degree of the SBF variation resulting from the population difference, we suggest that the distance measurement before the proper in-depth analysis of stellar populations should be done with great caution.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.31.2-31.2
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• 2010

We have performed a spectroscopic study of globular cluster (GC) system associated with the Virgo cD galaxy M87 using the Subaru/FOCAS MOS mode. We derive ages, metallicities and abundance ratios from the GC spectra using Simple Stellar Population (SSP) models. The metallicity distribution function (MDF) obtained empirically based on Milky Way GCs is consistent with the MDF derived from SSP models. A comparison with a meta-analysis using literature data sample of 15 other GC systems shows good agreement with our results. The properties of GCs acquired from the spectra will be used to test the recent theoretical prediction of a significant inflection along the colour-metallicity relations (Yoon et al. 2006). If confirmed, the non-linearity of the relations would shed new light on the interpretation of the GC colour bimodality. The robustness of our results is being tested against the choice of a SSP model, measurement errors and sample selection towards the goal of better understanding the formation history of GCs and host galaxy.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.86.1-86.1
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• 2012

Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR7 분광자료를 이용하여 z < 0.01에 존재하는 필드(field) 은하 505개를 선별하였다. SDSS의 컬러 영상을 이용하여 필드은하들의 형태(morphology)를 타원은하/왜소타원은하, 렌즈은하/왜소렌즈은하, 나선은하, 그리고 불규칙은하로 분류하였으며, 이들 은하들에 대한 측광을 수행하였다. 한편, Galex Evolution Explorer (GALEX) 자외광 영상으로부터 선별된 은하들에 대한 자외광 측광도 수행하였다. 서로 다른 환경에 있는 은하들의 최근 별탄생 활동이 어떻게 변화하는지 파악하기 위하여 처녀자리은하단 (Virgo cluster)에 있는 은하들과 비교하여 필드은하들의 자외광-가시광 색-등급 분포를 조사하였다. 처녀자리은하단 은하들에 비하여 필드은하들은 작은 자외광-가시광색지수를 가지는 만기형 은하들의 비율이 높았다. 특히, 조기형 필드은하들의 색지수 값이 처녀자리은하단 조기형 은하들에 비해 전반적으로 더 작은 값을 나타내고, 이 특징은 질량이 작은 왜소은하에서 더욱 크게 나타남을 알 수 있었다. 한편, 환경적 효과를 거의 받지 않는 필드은하들은 환경적 효과가 큰 은하단 은하들의 진화 연구에서 환경적 효과의 크기 및 기작을 규명하는 기본 자료로 사용될 수 있음을 토의하고자 한다.

• 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.