• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.151-155
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• 2017

We investigate the radio properties of the dwarf galaxy SDSS J133245.62+263449.3 which shows optical signatures of black hole activity. Dwarf galaxies are known to host intermediate mass black holes (IMBHs) with masses $M_{BH}{\sim}10^{4-6}M_{\odot}$, some of them being radio loud. Recently, Reines et al. (2013) found dwarf galaxy candidates which show signatures of being black hole hosts based on optical spectral lines. SDSS J133245.62+263449.3 is one of them; it shows a flux density of ~ 20 mJy at 1.4 GHz, which corresponds to $L_{1.4GHz}{\sim}10^{23}W\;Hz^{-1}$. This is much brighter than other black hole host dwarf galaxies. However, star formation activity can contribute to radio continuum emission as well. To understand the nature of the radio emission from SDSS J133245.62+263449.3, we imaged this radio loud dwarf galaxy at low frequencies (325 MHz and 610 MHz) using the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT). We present here the high resolution images from our GMRT observations. While we detect no obvious extended emission from radio jets from the central AGN, we do find the emission to be moderately extended and unlikely to be dominated by disk star formation. VLBI observations using the Korean VLBI Network (KVN) are now being planned to understand the emission morphology and radiation mechanism.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.48.4-49
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• 2015

Stellar spiral arms and magnetic fields in disk galaxies are important in the formation of gaseous structures such as spurs/feathers and wiggles as well as in angular momentum transport between stars and gas. We present our recent results of global magnetohydrodynamic simulations to study nonlinear responses of self-gravitating and magnetized gas to an imposed stellar spiral potential. We vary the arm strength, the arm pattern speed, and magnetic field strength to explore various galactic situations. Magnetic fields not only reduce the peak density of galactic spiral shocks but also make angular momentum transport more efficient via magnetic pressure and tension forces. The extent and shapes of gaseous arms as well as the radial mass drift rate depend rather sensitively on the magnetic field strength. The wiggle instability apparent in unmagnetized models is suppressed with increasing magnetic field strength, while magnetic fields promote the development of magneto-Jeans instability of the arms and magnetic islands in between arms. We quantify the angular momentum transport by spiral shocks, focusing on the effects of magnetic fields. We also present physical interpretations of our numerical results and discuss astronomical implications of our findings.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.34.1-34.1
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• 2010

Studies suggest that activities in luminous AGNs, residing mostly in early-type galaxies, are triggered by merging. However, the observational evidence for the connection between mergers and AGN activity is not clear yet because tracer of the past merging activities such as tidal tail, shell are often too faint. To see if we can reveal the merging features with a small telescope, we observed an AGN, MARK 478, at z=0.077 with long exposure time (7550 seconds) in V filter at Maidanak observatory. Our 2-D fitting analysis shows that the host galaxy of MARK 478 has the bulge to the total luminosity ratio of 0.3. And the residual image, after subtracting point spread function (PSF), bulge and disk components, shows that the host galaxy has an arm-like feature that could be a spiral arm or a feature from minor merging. We also show that the structural parameters obtained from our 2-D fitting match well with those derived from HST image. The promising result suggests that studies of low redshift AGN host galaxies are possible with data from a small telescope. In order to allow a statistical analysis, we hope to expand our sample size in future.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.71.2-71.2
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• 2011

To investigate the properties of the narrow-line regions and the accretion disks of YRGs, we study a sample of 28 young radio galaxies (YRGs) observed with the Kast Double Spectrograph at the Shane 3-m telescope and with the DBSP (Double Spectrograph for the Palomar 200-inch Telescope) at Palomar observatory. In addition we collect an addition sample of 15 YRGs with the optical spectra from the SDSS archive. We present the measured narrow-line region properties based on the various emission line ratios, i.e., [O III]/$H{\beta}$, [N II]/$H{\alpha}$, [S II] 6716/6731, [O I]/[O III], [O II]/[O III] and [Ar III]/[O III], which are useful to constrain the gas properties and the states of the accretion disk. We will discuss the characteristics of YRG.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.40.1-40.1
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• 2014

We have classified barred galaxies for 418 RC3 sample galaxies within z < 0.01 from SDSS DR7 using the visual inspection, ellipse fitting method and Fourier analysis. We found the bar fraction to be ~60%, 43% and 70% for each method and that the ellipse fitting method tends to miss the bar when a large bulge hides the transition from bar to disk in early spirals. We also confirmed that the Fourier analysis cannot distinguish between a bar and spiral arm structure. These systematic difficulties may have produced the long-time controversy about bar fraction dependence on Hubble sequence, mass and color. We designed a new method to fine bars by analyzing the ratio map of bar strength in polar coordinates, which yields the bar fraction of ~27% and ~32% for SAB and SB, respectively. The consistency with visual inspection reaches around 70%, and roughly 90% of visual strong bar are classified as SAB and SB in our classification. Although our method also has a weakness that a large bulge lowers the value of bar strength, the missing bar fraction in early spirals is reduced to the level of ~1/4 compared to the ellipse fitting method. Our method can make up for the demerits of the previous automatic classifications and provide a quantitative bar classification that agrees with visual classification.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.54.1-54.1
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• 2011

Formation of self-gravitating gas clouds and hence stars in galaxies is a consequence of both thermal and dynamical evolution of a gaseous medium. Using hydrodynamics simulations including cooling and heating explicitly, we follow simultaneously thermal and dynamical evolution of galactic gas disks to study dynamics and structures of galactic spiral shocks with thermal instability and regulation of the star formation rates (SFRs). We first perform one-dimensional simulations in direction perpendicular to spiral arms. The multiphase gas flows across the arm soon achieve a quasi-steady state characterized by transitions from warm to cold phases at the shock and from cold to warm phases in the postshock expansion zone, producing a substantial fraction of intermediate-temperature gas. Next, we allow a vertical degree of freedom to model vertically stratified disks. The shock front experiences unsteady flapping motions, driving a significant amount of random gas motions, and self-gravity promotes formation of bound clouds inside spiral arms. Finally, we include the star formation feedback in both mechanical (due to supernova explosion) and radiative (due to FUV heating by young stars) forms in the absence of spiral arms. At saturation, gravitationally bound clouds form via thermal and gravitational instabilities, which are compensated by disruption via supernova explosions. We find that the FUV heating regulates the SFRs when gas surface density is low, confirming the prediction of the thermal and dynamical equilibrium model of Ostriker et al. (2010) for star formation regulation.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.81-87
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• 2003

It is suggested that a flying-by star in a hot accretion disk may cool the hot accretion disk by the Comptonization of the stellar emission. Such a stellar cooling can be observed in the radio frequency regime since synchrotron luminosity depends strongly on the electron temperature of the accretion flow. If a bright star orbiting around the supermassive black hole cools the hot disk, one should expect a quasi-periodic modulation in radio, or even possible an anti-correlation of luminosities in radio and X-rays. Recently, the unprecedentedly accurate infrared imaging of the Sagittarius A$\ast$ for about ten years enables us to resolve stars around it and thus determine orbital parameters of the currently closest star S2. We explore the possibility of using such kind of observation to distinguish two quite different physical models for the central engine of the Sagittarius A$\ast$, that is, a hot accretion disk model and a jet model. We have attempted to estimate the observables using the observed parameters of the star S2. The relative difference in the electron temperature is a few parts of a thousand at the epoch when the star S2 is near at the pericenter. The relative radio luminosity difference with and without the stellar cooling is also small of order $10^{-4}$, particularly even when the star S2 is near at the pericenter. On the basis of our findings we tentatively conclude that even the currently closest pass of the star S2 is insufficiently close enough to meaningfully constrain the nature of the Sagittarius A$\ast$ and distinguish two competing models. This implies that even though Bower et al. (2002)have found no periodic radio flux variations in their data set from 1981 to 1998, which is naturally expected from the presence of a hot disk, a hot disk model cannot be conclusively ruled out. This is simply because the energy bands they have studied are too high to observe the effect of the star S2 even if it indeed interacts with the hot disk. In other words, even if there is a hot accretion disk the star like S2 has imprints in the frequency range at v $\le$ 100 MHz.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.30.1-30.1
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• 2016

We have estimated a metallicity map of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) using the Magellanic Cloud Photometric Survey (MCPS) and Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE III) photometric data. This is a first of its kind, high-spatial resolution map of metallicity up to a radius of $4^{\circ}-5^{\circ}$, derived using large area photometric data and calibrated using spectroscopic data of Red Giant Branch (RGB) stars. The RGB is identified in the V, (V - I) colour- magnitude diagrams of small subregions of varying sizes in both data sets. The slope of the RGB is used as an indicator of the mean metallicity of a subregion, and it is calibrated to metallicity using spectroscopic data for field and cluster red giants in selected subregions. The mean metallicity of the LMC is found to be [Fe/H] = -0.37 dex (${\sigma}[Fe/H]=0.12$) from MCPS data, and [Fe/H] = -0.39 dex (${\sigma}[Fe/H]=0.10$) from OGLE III data. The bar is found to have an uniform and higher metallicity compared to the disk, and is indicative of an active bar in the past. Both the data sets suggest a shallow radial metallicity gradient up to a radius of 4 kpc ($-0.049{\pm}0.002$ dex kpc-1 to $-0.066{\pm}0.006$ dex kpc-1). This metallicity gradient of the LMC disk, though shallow, resembles the gradient seen in spiral galaxies, and similar to that found in our Galaxy.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.151-159
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• 1991

Using the photographic imagery of the SO galaxy NGC 5102, the equivalent luminosity profile and the fractional integrated luminosity curve have been derived. Several photometric parameters of the galaxy, such as a total magnitude ($B_T$), equivalent radius ($r^*_e$), effective surface brightness (${\mu}^*_e$), and concentration indices ($C_{21}$, $C_{32}$) were derived from the luminosity profiles. According to the decomposition method from the nonlinear least squares fitting, photometric parameters of the bulge (${\mu}_e$, $r_e$) and the exponential disk (${\mu}(0)$, ${\alpha}^{-1}$), and the bulge to total luminosity ratio (B/T) were obtained. The derived central disk surface brightness (${\mu} (0)\;=\;22.06\;{\pm}\;0.18\;mag/\Box"$) and the evaluated B/T ratio (= 0.52) of the NGC 5102 are close to the mean values (${\mu} (0)\;=\;21.65\;{\pm}\;0.3\;mag/\Box"$, B/T=0.63) of the SO galaxies. Analysis showed that a lens-like hump is embedded in the equivalent luminosity profile of the NGC 5102.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.47.2-47.2
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• 2014

Bulges of galaxies are thought to have formed and grown at least in part through galaxy mergers, and thus an accurate derivation of their properties can be an effective course to test/confirm our understanding on their formation and evolution in the standard hierarchical merger paradigm. We have generated a sample of galaxy bulges (n = 15,423) in the nearby (0.005 < z < 0.05) universe from the SDSS DR7 and GALEX GR6plus7 databases and derived their structural and photometric properties by means of SExtractor and GALFIT application. Most notable properties include bulge-to-total luminosity ratio, effective radius, disk scale length, ellipticity, and position angle. The UV properties of the bulges have also been analyzed to infer their recent star formation history. A spectroscopic analysis has been performed using their absorption and emission line strengths measured and released by the OSSY team. We present our preliminary results from our investigation mainly focused on stellar population properties and discuss their implications on the formation of bulges.