• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.29 no.spc1
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• pp.111-118
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• 1996

We review observational evidence bearing on the formation of a prototypical large spiral galaxy, the Milky Way. New ground- and space-based studies of globular star clusters and dwarf spheroidal galaxies provide a wealth of information to constrain theories of galaxy formation. It appears likely that the Milky Way formed by an combination of rapid, dissipative collapse and mergers, but the relative contributions of these two mechanisms remain controversial. New evidence, however, indicates that initial star and star cluster formation occurred simultaneously over a volume that presently extends to twice the distance of the Magellanic Clouds.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.64.1-64.1
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• 2020

Galaxy groups are the place where many galaxies feel the impact of the surroundings (e.g., merging, tidal interaction, ram pressure stripping) before joining bigger structures like (sub)clusters. A significant fraction of galaxies is quenched in the group environment. Such "pre-processing" of galaxies in groups is likely to affect galaxy evolution tremendously. To better understand how environmental processes in galaxy groups affect molecular gas, star formation activity, and galaxy evolution, we carried out CO imaging observations of group galaxies, using the Atacama Compact Array (ALMA/ACA). We selected all the targets that have been detected in the GEMS-HI survey for two groups, making the sample of 40 galaxies (18 galaxies in IC 1459 group and 22 galaxies in NGC 4636 group). Our ALMA/ACA observation is the first CO imaging survey for two groups. In this work, we present CO images of group galaxies, together with their star formation maps and HI images. Our ACA CO data show the asymmetric distribution of molecular gas in some of our samples. We discuss the impact of the group environment on molecular gas and star formation activity.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.65.3-66
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• 2020

We use the IllustrisTNG cosmological hydrodynamical simulation to study the evolution of star formation rate (SFR)-density relation over cosmic time. We construct several samples of galaxies at different redshifts from z=2.0 to z=0.0, which have the same comoving number density. The SFR of galaxies decreases with local density at z=0.0, but its dependence on local density becomes weaker with redshift. At z≳1.0, the SFR of galaxies increases with local density (reversal of the SFR-density relation), and its dependence becomes stronger with redshift. This change of SFR-density relation with redshift still remains even when fixing the stellar masses of galaxies. The dependence of SFR on the distance to a galaxy cluster also shows a change with redshift in a way similar to the case based on local density, but the reversal happens at a higher redshift, z~1.5, in clusters. On the other hand, the molecular gas fraction always decreases with local density regardless of redshift at z=0.0-2.0 even though the dependence becomes weaker when we fix the stellar mass. Our study demonstrates that the observed reversal of the SFR-density relation at z≳1.0 can be successfully reproduced in cosmological simulations. Our results are consistent with the idea that massive, star-forming galaxies are strongly clustered at high redshifts, forming larger structures. These galaxies then consume their gas faster than those in low-density regions through frequent interactions with other galaxies, ending up being quiescent in the local universe.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.17-28
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• 2007

We present wide-field $JHK_s$-band photometric observations of the three compact H II regions G48.9-0.3, G49.0-0.3, and G49.2-0.3 in the active star-forming region W51B. The star clusters inside the three compact H II regions show the excess number of stars in the $J-K_s$ histograms compared with reference fields. While the mean color excess ratio $(E_{J-H}/E_{H-K_s})$ of the three compact H II regions are similar to ${\sim}2.07$, the visual extinctions toward them are somewhat different: ${\sim}17$ mag for G48.9-0.3 and G49.0-0.3; ${\sim}23$ mag for G49.2-0.3. Based on their sizes and brightnesses, we suggest that the age of each compact H II region is ${\leq}2\;Myr$. The inferred total stellar mass, ${\sim}1.4{\times}10^4M_{\odot}$, of W51B makes it one of the most active star forming regions in the Galaxy with the star formation efficiency of ${\sim}10%$.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.48 no.6
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• pp.343-355
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• 2015

There is much observational evidence that active star formation is taking place in the Hii regions Sh 2-255 – 257. We present a photometric study of this star forming region (SFR) using imaging data obtained in passbands from the optical to the mid-infrared, in order to study the star formation process. A total of 218 members were identified using various selection criteria based on their observational properties. The SFR is reddened by at least E(B −V ) = 0.8 mag, and the reddening law toward the region is normal (R_V = 3.1). From the zero-age main sequence fitting method it is confirmed that the SFR is 2.1 ± 0.3 kpc from the Sun. The median age of the identified members is estimated to be about 1.3 Myr from a comparison of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram (HRD) with stellar evolutionary models. The initial mass function (IMF) is derived from the HRD and the near-infrared (J, J −H) color-magnitude diagram. The slope of the IMF is about Γ = −1.6 ± 0.1, which is slightly steeper than that of the Salpeter/Kroupa IMF. It implies that low-mass star formation is dominant in the SFR. The sum of the masses of all the identified members provides the lower limit of the cluster mass (169M_⊙). We also analyzed the spectral energy distribution (SED) of pre-main sequence stars using the SED fitting tool of Robitaille et al., and confirm that there is a significant discrepancy between stellar mass and age obtained from two different methods based on the SED fitting tool and the HRD.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.79.2-79.2
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• 2013

The distributions of Horizontal Branch (HB) star color, temperature, and mass encode a great deal of information on the stellar evolutionary and (possibly) dynamical processes taking place in Globular Clusters (GCs). An accurate physical modeling of the Red Giant Branch (RGB) mass-loss process is key to solving the so-called second parameter problem. In my poster I will present the most recent advancements of an analytical model for mass-loss along the RGB. The model predicts the HB mass distribution with remarkable accuracy over a sample of 4 GCs. These results were submitted as a paper to ApJ (Pasquato et al. 2013, ApJ submitted), but here I expand on them presenting refinements to the model and a comparison with HB masses obtained from Galex ultraviolet observations.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.36 no.5
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• pp.427-436
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• 2015

We classified Abell clusters using the magnitude differences between two or three bright member galaxies and investigated how such classification was correlated with the properties of brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs). S-type BCGs being clearly brighter than the rest of the member galaxies were likely to be red, luminous, and evolved as early type galaxies. On the other hand, T-type BCGs being not dominant at all were less luminous than early type galaxies. A small fraction of BCGs was currently forming stars, and all of the star-forming BCGs were T-type BCGs. Active galactic nuclei were most frequent for S-type BCGs. Through these quantitative analyses of the BCG properties, we discussed the possible scenario of BCG formation and the differences between S-type and T-type of BCGs.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.30.1-30.1
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• 2017

In the hope to detect low-surface brightness features (${\mu}_{r^{\prime}}{\sim}27\;mag\;arcsec^{-2}$), we carried out KASI-Yonsei Deep Imaging Survey for Clusters (KYDISC) targeting 14 local clusters at 0.016 < z < 0.145 using Magellan/IMACS telescope and CFHT/MegaCam. Out of 1450 cluster galaxies, 18% of galaxies show the signatures of galaxy mergers. We explore merger-driven changes from various point-of-view. We first examine color-magnitude relations, and find that galaxies related to recent mergers are populated more on blue color than their counterparts. Besides, we find the extremely low frequency of mergers on low-mass red-sequence galaxies, suggesting a migration of red galaxies into the green-valley region through merger-driven star-formation. We also study the mass-size relation of our sample, finding a larger galaxy size in galaxies related to recent mergers. Our results suggest that mergers can simultaneously change properties of galaxies, making outliers on galactic scaling relations.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.275-278
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• 2015

We studied a cluster family in the northern part of the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372) a group of clusters near NGC 3324 (Tr 15, NGC 3293, Loden 165, Loden 153 and IC 2581). We used data from UCAC4 to determine the cluster's membership and the near infrared CMDs of each cluster. We analyzed the spatial density and elongation as a function of radius for each cluster and found a possible interaction between NGC 3293 and Loden153. However, the shape distortion of NGC 3324 cannot be evaluated because of the inhomogenity in the coverage of UCAC4 in the east part of NGC 3324.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.47.2-47.2
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• 2019

We present a kinematic study of the two young OB associations Cygnus OB2 and Carina OB1 using the recently released Gaia astrometric data. The unimodal distributions of parallaxes of stars indicate that these associations are real stellar systems, rather than line-of-sight coincidences. The associations are found to comprise dense star clusters and a sparse halo which have different proper motions. Clusters have small spatial sizes with small dispersions in proper motion, while the haloes extending to tens of parsecs have a large dispersion in proper motion. We speculate that this aspect is related to that found in molecular clouds, the so-called "line width-size" relation. In this talk, the formation process of these associations is discussed, based on our findings.