• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.35.1-35.1
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• 2019

We present a statistical analysis on the spin-orbit alignment of dark matter halo pairs in cosmological simulations. The alignment is defined as the angular concurrence between the halo spin vector (${\vec{S}}$) and the orbital angular momentum vector (${\vec{L}}$) of the major companion. We identify interacting halo pairs with the mass ratios from 1:1 to 1:3, with the halo masses of 10.8 < $Log(M_{halo}/M_{sun}$) < 13.0, and with the separations smaller than a sum of their virial radii ($R_{12}<R_{1,vir}+R_{2,vir}$). Based on the total energy ($E_{12}$), the pairs are classified into flybys ($E_{12}$ > 0) and mergers ($E_{12}{\leq}0$). By measuring the angle (${\theta}_{SL}$) between ${\vec{S}}$ and ${\vec{L}}$, we confirm a strong spin-orbit alignment signal such that the halo spin is preferentially aligned with the orbital angular momentum of the major companion. We find that the signal of the spin-orbit alignment for the flyby is weaker than that for the merger. We also find an unexpected excess signal of the spin-orbit alignment at $cos{\theta}_{SL}{\sim}0.25$. Both the strength of the spin-orbit alignment and the degree of the excess depend only on the environment. We conclude that the halo spin is determined by the accretion in a preferred direction set by the ambient environment.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.261-266
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• 2005

This paper reviews the progress in the VLBI (Very Long Baseline Interferometry) studies of Sgr A$\ast$, the best known supermassive black hole candidates with a dark mass concentration of $4 {\times} 10^6 M_{\bigodot}$ at the center of the Milky Way. The emphasis is on the importance of the millimeter and sub-millimeter VLBI observations in the detection of Sgr A$\ast$'s intrinsic structure and search for the structural variation.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.286-292
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• 2022

As mobile electronics become smarter, higher-level security systems are necessary to protect private information and property from hackers. For this, biometric authentication systems have been widely studied, where the recognition of unique biological traits of an individual, such as the face, iris, fingerprint, and voice, is required to operate the device. Among them, ultrasound fingerprint imaging technology using piezoelectric materials is one of the most promising approaches adopted by Samsung Galaxy smartphones. In this review, we summarize the recent progress on piezoelectric ultrasound micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) transducers with various piezoelectric materials and provide insights to achieve the highest-level biometric authentication system for mobile electronics.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.61.2-61.2
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• 2011

Low-ionization nuclear emission-line regions (LINERs) have been generally regarded to be powered by active galactic nuclei (AGNs), yet still a number of alternative explanations on the origin of LINER emission are suggested; for example, planetary nebulae nuclei of massive stars, supernovae shocks from death of massive stars, and old stellar populations. Interestingly, a majority of recent star formation early-type galaxies (ETGs) in local universe presents such LINER emission lines. Given that situation, revealing the true nature of LINERs is a crucial step to constrain the evolution path to quiescent ETGs. To resolve the issue, we use Keck/LRIS to obtain spatially resolved spectra on a carefully selected ETG. The ETG SDSS J091628.05+420818.7 at redshift z ~ 0.024 shows modest LINER emission line features without any detection of 21 cm radio continuum nor X-ray emission. We perform a stellar continuum subtraction and measure emission line strengths and their uncertainties for each spectrum from five apertures along the slit with size of 1 arcsecond (~0.5 kpc). We find that extended spatial distributions of four emission lines $H{\alpha}$, $H{\beta}$, [OIII]${\lambda}5007$, and [NII]${\lambda}6583$, and they can be explained by central emission blurring effect. We conclude that the emissions seem to be centrally concentrated, indicating the AGN-nature of LINERs.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.59.1-59.1
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• 2015

We present hydrodynamic simulations of gas clouds that inflowing from the disk to a few hundred parsec region of the Milky Way. Realistic Galactic structures are included in our simulations by thousands of multipole expansions that describe 6.4 million stellar particles of a self-consistent Galaxy simulation (Baba, Saitoh & Wada, in prep.). We find that a hybrid multipole expansion model with two different basis sets and a thick disk correction well reproduces the overall structures of the Milky Way. We find that the nuclear ring evolves into 240 pc at T~1500 Myr, regardless of the initial size. For most of simulation runs, gas inflow rate to the nuclear region is equilibrated as ~0.02 Msun/yr, and thus accumulated gas mass and star formation activity is stabilized as $6{\times}10^7Msun$ and ~0.02M/yr, respectively. These stabilized values are in a good agreement with estimations for the CMZ. The nuclear ring is off-centered to the Galactic center by the lopsided central mass distribution of the Galaxy model, and thus an asymmetric mass distribution is arose accordingly. The lopsidedness also leads the nuclear ring to be tilted to the Galactic plane and to precess along the Galaxy rotation. In early evolutionary stage when gas clouds start to inflow and form the nuclear ring, the z-directional oscillations of the gas clouds results in the twisted, infinity-shaped nuclear ring. Since the infinity-shaped feature is transient only for first 100 Myr, the current infinity-shape observed in the CMZ may indicate that the CMZ forms quite recently.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.157-160
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• 2005

To constrain the values of the model parameters for the cosmological models involving the time-decaying $\Lambda$ term, we have computed sets of theoretical predictions for the N-m relation of galaxies as well as the CMB angular power spectrum: three types of variation, viz., ${\Lambda}{\propto} T^{-1},\;a^{-m}$, and $H^n$ are thereby assumed following Overduin & Cooperstock (1998), although we concentrate here on the discussion of the results obtained from the first type. Our results for the N-m relation indicate that the observed excess of the galaxy counts N in the faint region beyond the blue apparent magnitude 24 can be reasonably well accounted for with the value of ${\iota}$ in the range between 0.2 and 1. Furthermore, a comparison of our computational results of the CMB spectra with the observational data shows that the models with a mild degree of the $\Lambda$ term decay, viz., with the value of ${\iota}{\le}$0.4, are favorable. In this case, the age of our universe turns out to be larger than or equal to 14 Gyr, the lower limit inferred from some Uranium datings.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.41.1-41.1
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• 2013

To test whether the close relationships between host and satellite galaxies in isolated groups are also found in the harsh environment of a galaxy cluster, we carry out a case study of WHL 085910.0+294957, a galaxy cluster at z=0.30, using deep images obtained with the 2.1-m Otto Struve telescope and CQUEAN CCD camera. When environmental parameters are controlled, the local weighted mean color of faint galaxies shows a measurable correlation with the color of their bright ($M_i$ < -18) neighbor. The most striking result is that the red (r - i > 0.2) and bright galaxies within 200 kpc distance from the center of the cluster are correlated in color with very faint ($M_i$ > -14) galaxies around them by $(r-i)_{satellites}=(7.276{\pm}1.402){\times}(r-i)_{host}-2.434$ (correlation coefficient = 0.665). We suggest three scenarios to interpret the results: vestiges of infallen groups, dwarf capturing, and tidal tearing of bright galaxies.

• 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.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.63-73
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• 1996

The previous study of chemical evolution of the Galaxy is extended to the radial properties of the Galactic disk. The present model includes radial dependency of the time-dependent bimodal IMF, radial flow of material in the disk, and the change of type I supernova explosion rate with radial distance from the disk center as model parameters and observed gas and stellar density distributions and metallicity abundance gradient as observational constraints. The results of two models in this study explain the observed gas and stellar density distributions well, with the slope of the gas density gradient in the region of 4.5 kpc$Y_1$ and -0.123dex/kpc in model $Y_2$, respectively, which fit well the observed gradient of -0.l1dex/kpc. The abundance gradient reproduced in model $Y_1$ is getting flatter with decreasing radius, while that in model $Y_2$ is getting steeper, which fits better the observed abundance gradient. This result shows the necessity of exponentially increasing type I supernova explosion rate with decreasing radius in order to explain the observed abundance gradient in the disk. The fitness of observed density distribution and star formation rate distribution justifies the reliability of time-dependent bimodal IMF as a compound quantitative chemical evolution model of the Galaxy. The temporal variations of metallicity gradients for carbon, nitrogen and oxygen are also shown.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.41.1-41.1
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• 2012

Interactions between the galactic interstellar medium (ISM) and the intra cluster medium (ICM) are believed to be one of the main processes affecting galaxy evolution in cluster environments. The aim of our research is to study the molecular gas properties of a galaxy under the ICM pressure in the cluster environment. It has been well known that cluster galaxies are deficient in atomic hydrogen gas (HI gas) compared to their field counterparts and now there is much evidence that low density ISM is being removed by ram pressure due to ICM wind. Meanwhile, no significant molecular gas deficiency of the cluster galaxy population has been found yet they show overall lower star formation rate than galaxies in the field, and it is still puzzling how the star formation could decrease without stripping of dense molecular gas. To address this issue, we probe the detailed molecular gas properties of NGC 4402, located near the cluster center, as part of a study of four spiral galaxies in the Virgo Cluster. NGC 4402 is well known undergoing ram pressure stripping with a truncated HI disk($D_{HI}/D_{opt}$ - 0.75 and only 36% of HI gas compare to field galaxies of a similar size) and a disturbed gas morphology. Comparing the high resolution 12CO and 13CO data of NGC 4402 from the Sub Millimeter Array (SMA) with existing other wavelength data, we probe the spatial distribution and a physical condition of molecular gas under strong ICM pressure. We discuss the star formation activity might have been altered and hence how the global color of NGC4402 would change in the future.