• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.84.3-84.3
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• 2019

We investigate 3D radiation-hydrodynamics (RHD) for surface convection of the solar-type low-mass stars (M = 0.8, 0.9, and 1.0 Msun). The outer convection zone (CZ) of low-mass stars is an extremely turbulent region composed of partly ionized compressible gases at high temperature. Particularly, the super-adiabatic layer (SAL), the top of the CZ is the transition region where the transport of energy changes drastically from convection to radiation. In order to accurately describe physical processes, a realistic treatment of radiation should be considered as well as convection. As a starting model, the initial stratification in the outer envelope calculated using the solar calibrations in the context of the standard stellar theory. When the numerical fluid becomes thermally relaxed, the thermodynamic structure of the steady-state turbulent flow was explicitly collected. In this presentation, we compared thermodynamic properties of turbulent convection of the solar-type low-mass stars.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.45-57
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• 2018

Low-mass star-formation studies deal with the birth of individual solar-type stars as it occurs in nearby molecular clouds. While this isolated mode of star formation may not represent the most common form of stellar birth, its study often provides first evidence for the general ingredients of star formation, such as gravitational infall, disk formation, or outflow acceleration. Here I briefly review the current status and the main challenges in our understanding of low-mass star formation, with emphasis in the still mysterious pre-stellar phase. In addition to presenting by-now classical work, I also show how ALMA is starting to play a decisive role driving progress in this field.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.60.3-60.3
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• 2019

Binary systems of a white dwarf showing mass transfer activities are classified into cataclysmic variables and symbiotic stars. In the case of cataclysmic variables, the companion is usually a late type main sequence star filling its Roche lobe, where material is transferred through the inner Lagrangian point to form an accretion disk around the white dwarf. The disk becomes unstable and highly viscous when the surface density exceeds the critical density, leading to dwarf nova outbursts. In contrast, symbiotic stars are wide binary systems having a giant as the mass donor. Some fraction of giant stellar wind is accreted to the white dwarf giving rise to various symbiotic activities. In particular, half of symbiotics show Raman O VI at 6830 and 7088, which are important spectroscopic probe of mass transfer process. Monitoring observations using 1 m class telescopes will produce valuable information regarding the mass loss and mass transfer to white dwarf stars, shedding much light on the last stage of stellar evolution of low and intermediate mass stars.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.70.4-71
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• 2020

One of the distinctive characteristics of the evolution of binary systems would be mass transfer. Close binary systems experience so-called Case A mass transfer during the main-sequence. We have performed calculations of the evolution of massive Case A (with the initial period 1.5 ~ 4.5 days) binary systems with the initial mass of 10 ~ 20 solar masses and mass ratio 0.5 ~ 0.95 using the MESA code. We find that in some systems, after the first mass transfer, the secondary stars evolve faster than the primary stars and undergo so-called 'reverse' mass transfer. Such phenomena tend to occur in relatively low-mass (initial mass < 16 solar masses) and close (initial period < 3 day) systems. Unless a system enters the common-envelope phase, the primary star would become a single helium star after the secondary star ends its life if the system were unbound by the neutron star kick. We find the various evolutionary implications of the remaining primary stars. In addition to the evolution into the compact single helium star progenitor, there is a possibility that the remaining primary star could evolve into a helium giant star, which could be a promising candidate for Type Ibn supernova progenitor, depending on the core mass. Further, we find that some primary stars satisfy the conditions for the formation of electron-capture supernova progenitor.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.81.1-81.1
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• 2021

Stellar kinematics is a useful tool to understand the formation and evolution of young stellar systems. Here, we present a kinematic study of the HII region, NGC 821, using the Gaia Early Data Release 3. NGC 281 contains the open cluster IC 1590. This cluster has a core and a low-stellar density halo. We detect a pattern of cluster expansion from the Gaia proper motion vectors. Most stars radially escaping from the cluster are distributed in the halo. We measure the 1-dimensional velocity dispersion of stars in the core. The velocity dispersion (1 km/s) is comparable to the expected virial velocity dispersion of this cluster, and therefore the core is at a virial state. The core has an initial mass function shallower than that of the halo, which is indicative of mass segregation. However, there is no significant correlation between stellar masses and tangential velocities. This result suggests that the mass segregation has a primordial origin. On the other hand, it has been believed that the formation of young stars in NGC 281 West was triggered by feedback from massive stars in IC 1590. We investigate the ages of stars in the two regions, but the age difference between the two regions is not comparable to the timescale of the passage of an ionization front. Also, the proper motion vectors of the NGC 281 West stars relative to IC 1590 do not show any systematic receding motion from the cluster. Our results suggest that stars in NGC 281 West might have been formed spontaneously. In conclusion, the formation of NGC 281 can be understood in the context of hierarchical star formation model.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.43.1-43.1
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• 2016

The duration of star formation activity is a key to understanding the formation process of star clusters. Although a number of astronomers have attempted to derive the underlying age spread in photometric diagrams with a variety of stellar evolutionary models, the resultant findings are subject to uncertainties due to intrinsic variability of pre-main sequence (PMS) stars, observational errors, difficulties in reddening correction, and systematic differences in adopted stellar evolutionary models. The distribution of Li abundance for PMS stars in a cluster could, on the other hand, provide an alternative way to estimate the age spread. In this study, a total of 134 PMS stars in NGC 2264 are observed with the high resolution multi-object spectrogragh Hectochelle attached to the 6.5m Multi Mirror Telescope. We have successfully detected Li ${\lambda}6708$ resonance doublet for 86 low-mass PMS stars. The Li abundance of the stars is derived from their equivalent width using a curves of growth method. After correction for non-LTE effects, the underlying age spread of 3 - 4 Myr is inferred from the Li abundance distribution of low-mass PMS stars. We suggest that NGC 2264 formed on a timescale shorter than 5 Myr given the presence of embedded populations.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.52 no.3
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• pp.57-69
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• 2019

We present an analysis of the chemical abundances and kinematics of six low-mass dwarf stars, previously claimed to be candidate hypervelocity stars (HVSs). We obtained moderate-resolution (R ~ 6000) spectra of these stars to estimate the abundances of several chemical elements (Mg, Si, Ca, Ti, Cr, Fe, and Ni), and derived their space velocities and orbital parameters using proper motions from the Gaia Data Release 2. All six stars are shown to be bound to the Milky Way, and in fact are not even considered high-velocity stars with respect to the Galactic rest frame. Nevertheless, we attempt to characterize their parent Galactic stellar components by simultaneously comparing their element abundance patterns and orbital parameters with those expected from various Galactic stellar components. We find that two of our program stars are typical disk stars. For four stars, even though their kinematic probabilistic membership assignment suggests membership in the Galactic disk, based on their distinct orbital properties and chemical characteristics, we cannot rule out exotic origins as follows. Two stars may be runaway stars from the Galactic disk. One star has possibly been accreted from a disrupted dwarf galaxy or dynamically heated from a birthplace in the Galactic bulge. The last object may be either a runaway disk star or has been dynamically heated. Spectroscopic follow-up observations with higher resolution for these curious objects will provide a better understanding of their origin.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.173-174
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• 2005

On behalf of the IRSF/SIRIUS group, I introduce some recent results from our deep near-infrared surveys (J, Hand Ks bands, limiting magnitude of Ks=17) toward star forming regions in the Milky Way Galaxy (MWG) and Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) with the near-infrared camera SIRIUS. We discovered a rich population of low-mass young stellar objects associated with the W3 and NGC 7538 regions in the MWG based on the near-infrared colors arid magnitudes. The high sensitivity of our survey enables us to detect intermediate-mass pre-main sequence stars, i.e. HAEBE stars, even in the LMC. We detected many HAEBE candidate stars in the N159/N160 complex star forming region in the LMC with the IRSF 1.4-m telescope. Spatial distributions of the young stellar objects indicate the sequential cluster formation in each star forming region in the complex and large scale (a few ${\times}$ 100 pc) sequential cluster formation over the entire complex.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.127-129
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• 2017

We have observed ~60 Weak-line T Tauri stars (WTTSs) toward the Chamaeleon star forming region using the AKARI Far-Infrared Surveyor (FIS) All-Sky maps. We could not detect any significant emission from each source even at the most sensitive WIDE-S band. Then, we have performed stacking analysis of these WTTSs using the WIDE-S band images to improve the sensitivity. However, we could not detect any significant emission in the resultant image with a noise level of $0.05MJy\;sr^{-1}$, or 3 mJy for a point source. The three-sigma upper limit of 9 mJy leads to the disk dust mass of $0.01M_{\oplus}$. This result suggests that the disks around Chamaeleon WTTSs are already evolved to debris disks.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.107-117
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• 1996

We have studied the star forming activities and dust properties of Lynds 1251, a dark cloud located at relatively high galactic latitude. Eleven IRAS point sources identified toward Lynds 1251 are discussed. Estimate of stellar masses, and far-infrared lumnosities of the young stars associated with two prominent IRAS point sources imply that these are T-Tauri stars with masses smaller than $0.3 M_\bigodot$. The low dust temperature of 27 K and low ratio of FIR emission to hydrogen column density are probably due to the lack of internal heating sources. Presumably two low mass young stars do not have enough energy to heat up the dust and gas associated. The dust heating is dominated by the interstellar heating source, and the weaker interstellar radiation field can explain the exceptionally low dust temperatures found in Lynds 1251. The estimated dust mass of Lynds 1251 is just $\~1M_\bigodot$, or about 1/1000 of gas mass, which implies that there must be a substantial amount of colder dust. The infrared flux at $100{\mu}m$ is matching well with $^{13}CO$ peak temperature, while the $^{12}CO$ integrated intensity is matching with the boundary of dust emission. Overall, the dust properties of Lynds 1251 is similar to those of normal dark clouds even though it does have star forming activities.