• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.175-178
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• 2015

Due to the lack of an accretion disk in a polar (magnetic cataclysmic variable, MCV), the material transferred from the secondary is directly accreted onto the white dwarf, forming an accretion stream and a hot spot on the white-dwarf component. During the eclipses, different light components can be isolated. Therefore, the monitoring of eclipsing polars could provide valuable information on several modern astrophysical problems, e.g., CVs as planetary hosting stars, mass transfer and mass accretion in CVs, and the magnetic activity of the most rapidly rotating cool dwarfs. In the past five years, we have monitored about 10 eclipsing polars (e.g., DP Leo and HU Aqr) using several 2-m class telescopes and about 100 eclipse profiles were obtained. In this paper, we will introduce the progress of our research group at YNOs. The first direct evidence of variable mass transfer in a CV is obtained and we show that it is the dark-spot activity that causes the mass transfer in CVs. Magnetic activity cycles of the cool secondary were detected and we show that the variable mass transfer is not caused by magnetic activity cycles. These results will shed light on the structure and evolution of close binary stars (e.g., CVs and Algols).

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.277-286
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• 2023

It is difficult to distinguish the pure signal produced by an orbiting planetary companion around giant stars from other possible sources, such as stellar spots, pulsations, or certain activities. Since 2003, we have obtained radial (RV) data from evolved stars using the high-resolution, fiber-fed Bohyunsan Observatory Echelle Spectrograph (BOES) at the Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory (BOAO). Here, we report the results of RV variations in the binary star HD 135438. We found two significant periods: 494.98 d with eccentricity of 0.23 and 8494.1 d with eccentricity of 0.83. Considering orbital stability, it is impossible to have two companions in such close orbits with high eccentricity. To determine the nature of the changes in the RV variability, we analyzed indicators of stellar spot and stellar chromospheric activity to find that there are no signals related to the significant period of 494.98 d. However, we calculated the upper limits of rotation period of the rotational velocity and found this to be 478-536 d. One possible interpretation is that this may be closely related to the rotational modulation of an orbital inclination at 67-90 degrees. The other signal corresponding to the period of 8494.1 d is probably associated with a stellar companion orbiting the giant star. A Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) simulation considering a single companion indicates that HD 135438 system hosts a stellar companion with 0.57^+0.017 _-0.017 M_⊙ with an orbital period of 8498 d.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.49.1-49.1
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• 2010

The optical lightcurves of flare events can be regarded as a direct indicator about the existence of magnetic activity in low-mass stars. Stellar flares are generated by magnetodynamic processes in the stellar interiors as on the Sun and indicate that the locally intensified active regions still exist on the photosphere. However previous photometric observations are limited to a few selected active objects because of their faintness and randomness of the flare occurrence. Based on dedicated deep (r~23), long-term (24 night) time-series monitoring of the open cluster M37 from MMT 6.5m transit survey program, we searched for flare-like transient phenomena in the 3,052 M-dwarf lightcurves with relatively high-temporal resolution (30s-90s). In order to collect all statistical significant events, we applied the change-point analysis with filtering algorithm using local statistics. We found a number of flares from 412 M-dwarf stars that are probable cluster members. Nearly half of them have periodic brightness variations with a near or distorted sinusoidal shape. With a small exception of binary cases, most of these variations appear to reflect the presence of large starspots resulting in rotational brightness modulations. We will discuss the relationship among magnetic activity indicators and dependence on spectral type.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.47-49
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• 2012

Massive binary stars lose mass by two mechanisms: jet-driven mass loss during periods of active mass transfer and by wind-driven mass loss. Beta Lyrae is an eclipsing, semi-detached binary whose state of active mass transfer provides a unique opportunity to study how the evolution of binary systems is affected by jet-driven mass loss. Roche lobe overflow from the primary star feeds the thick accretion disk which almost completely obscures the mass-gaining star. A hot spot predicted to be on the edge of the accretion disk may be the source of beta Lyrae's bipolar outflows. I present results from spectropolarimetric data taken with the University of Wisconsin's Half-Wave Spectropolarimeter and the Flower and Cook Observatory's photoelastic modulating polarimeter instrument which have implications for our current understanding of the system's disk geometry. Using broadband polarimetric analysis, I derive new information about the structure of the disk and the presence and location of a hot spot. These results place constraints on the geometrical distribution of material in beta Lyrae and can help quantify the amount of mass lost from massive interacting binary systems during phases of mass transfer and jet-driven mass loss.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.143.1-143.1
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• 2012

We attempt to investigate the main reason of the asymmetrical light curves of contact and near-contact eclipsing binary base on the hypothesis that cool spot was produced on late type star while hot spot was produced from transferred material from their companion star hitting surface. We select 7 eclipsing binary systems which showed asymmetric light curves and mass transfer. Period variation and mass transfer rate were obtained from O-C diagram. Radial velocity curves and light curves of those 7 eclipsing binary system were adopted from available literature in order to obtain the absolute dimension. For four contact eclipsing binary system (AD Phe, EZ Hya, AG Vir and VW Boo), their component stars belonged to spectral type G to K was fitted by cool spot model. While the other two near-contact systems (RT Scl and V1010 Oph) and one contact system (SV Cen) was fitted by cool spot model. The densities of the materials are adopted from stellar model which calculate by stellar structure code. The calculated spot temperature turns out to agree with the photometric solution but there are no correlate between period variation rate and type of spot.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.75-80
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• 2010

Several survey observations have produced light curves of more than five thousand eclipsing binaries for last 15 years. Future missions such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) and Gaia are expected to yield hundreds thousands of new variable stars and eclipsing binaries. Current methods require a week to analyze the light curves of an eclipsing binary for its physical and orbital parameters. The current methods of analyzing the light curves will be inadequate to treat the overwhelming influx of new data. Therefore we developed a new method to treat large numbers of light curves of eclipsing binaries. We tested the new method by analyzing more than one hundred light curves of the detached and semi-detached eclipsing binaries discovered in the Small Magellan Cloud and present their fitted light curves with observations.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.21-33
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• 2007

Ever since the identification of 6830 and 7088 features as the Raman scattered O VI 1032, 1038 resonance doublets in symbiotic stars by Schmid (1989), Raman scattering by atomic hydrogen has been a very unique tool to investigate the mass transfer processes in symbiotic stars. Discovery of Raman scattered He II in young planetary nebulae (NGC 7027, NGC 6302, IC 5117) allow one to expect that Raman scattering can be an extremely useful tool to look into the mass loss processes in these objects. Because hydrogen is a single electron atom, their wavefunctions are known in closed form, so that exact calculations of cross sections are feasible. In this paper, I review some basic properties of Raman scattered features and present detailed and explicit matrix elements for computation of the scattering cross section of radiation with atomic hydrogen. Some astrophysical objects for which Raman scattering may be observationally pertinent are briefly mentioned.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.201-211
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• 2010

We present an analysis of the measurements of mid-eclipse times of V839 Oph, collected from literature sources. Our analysis indicates a period increase of $3.2{\times}10^{-7}$ day/yr. This period increase of V839 Oph can be interpreted in terms of mass transfer of rate $1.76{\times}10^{-7}M_{\odot}/yr$, from the less to the more massive component. The O - C diagram shows a damping sine wave covering two different complete cycles of 36.73 yr and 19.93 yr with amplitudes approximately equal to 0.0080 and 0.0043 day, respectively. The third cycle has to be expected to cover about 13.5 years with lower amplitude than those of the former two cycles. These unequal duration cycles show a non periodicity which may be explained as resulting from either the presence of a tertiary component to the system or cyclic magnetic activity variations due to star spots. For the later mechanism, the obtained characteristics are consistent when applying Applegate (1992) mechanism.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.81-97
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• 2001

Since the first proposal by Paczynski, great efforts to detect Galactic dark matter by detecting light variations of stars located in the Magellanic Clouds and Galactic bulge caused by gravitational microlensing have been and are being carried out and more than 1,000 events have been successfully detected. In this paper, we review the progress in the theoretical and experimental progresses in microlensing. We begin with basics of microlensing and summarize the results obtained from the last 8 year observations along with the implications of the results. We also discuss the usefulness of microlensing in other fields of astronomy such as the stellar atmosphere, Galactic binary systems, and extra-solar planets. We finally discuss the problems of the current experiments and the new types of observations that can overcome these problems.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.40.1-40.1
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• 2018

Among Type I supernovae, which show no evidence for hydrogen lines in spectra, Type Ib/c supernovae lack of strong Si absorption lines and are involved with massive progenitors. While strong helium absorption lines are present in Type Ib supernovae, narrow helium emission lines also can appear in some Type Ib that are often called Type Ibn supernovae (SNe Ibn). We consider helium giant stars as a promising progenitor candidate for SN Ibn and suggest the evolutionary scenario through binary systems using MESA code. In our models the range of primary mass is 11 - 20 solar mass, mass ratio is 0.5 - 0.9, and initial period is 1.5 / 1.7 / 2.0 / 2.5 / 3.0 day. In particular, we find that the evolution of the secondary star can overtake the primary through mass transfer from the secondary to the primary, which is so-called 'reverse case B' mass transfer. In such systems the secondary star may undergo a supernova explosion earlier than the primary star. In this case, the primary star evolves towards a single helium giant to become a SN Ibn progenitor. These cases are more frequent in relatively low initial primary mass.