• 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.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.83-86
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• 2015

We present observational results characterizing molecular outflows from very low-mass objects in ${\rho}$ Ophiuchi and Taurus. Our results provide us with important implications that clarify the formation process of very low-mass objects.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.355-358
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• 2015

We have conducted a near-infrared monitoring campaign at the UK InfraRed Telescope (UKIRT), of the Local Group galaxy M33. The main aim was to identify stars in the very final stage of their evolution, and for which the luminosity is more directly related to the birth mass than the more numerous less-evolved giant stars that continue to increase in luminosity. The pulsating giant stars (AGB and red supergiants) are identified and their distributions are used to derive the star formation rate as a function of age. These stars are also important dust factories; we measure their dust production rates from a combination of our data with Spitzer Space Telescope mid-IR photometry. The mass-loss rates are seen to increase with increasing strength of pulsation and with increasing bolometric luminosity. Low-mass stars lose most of their mass through stellar winds, but even super-AGB stars and red superginats lose ~40% of their mass via a dusty stellar wind. We construct a 2-D map of the mass-return rate, showing a radial decline but also local enhancements due to agglomerations of massive stars. By comparing the current star formation rate with total mass input to the ISM, we conclude that the star formation in the central regions of M33 can only be sustained if gas is accreted from further out in the disc or from circum-galactic regions.

• 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.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.21-30
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• 2018

Formation processes of high-mass stars have been long-standing issues in astronomy and astrophysics. This is mainly because of major difficulties in observational studies such as a smaller number of high-mass young stellar objects (YSOs), larger distances, and more complex structures in young high-mass clusters compared with nearby low-mass isolated star-forming regions (SFRs), and extremely large opacity of interstellar dust except for centimeter to submillimeter wavelengths. High resolution and high sensitivity observations with Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) at millimeter/submillimeter wavelengths will overcome these observational difficulties even for statistical studies with increasing number of high-mass YSO samples. This review will summarize recent progresses in high-mass star-formation studies with ALMA such as clumps and filaments in giant molecular cloud complexes and infrared dark clouds (IRDCs), protostellar disks and outflows in dense cores, chemistry, masers, and accretion bursts in high-mass SFRs.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.267-270
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• 2005

We investigate the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of low mass-loss rate O-rich asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars using the infrared observational data including the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) data. Comparing the results of detailed radiative transfer model calculations with observations, we find that the dust formation temperature is much lower than 1000 K for standard dust shell models. We find that the superwind model with a density-enhanced region can be a possible alternative dust shell model for LMOA stars.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.49.1-49.1
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• 2017

In order to investigate the origin of multiple stellar populations in the halo and bulge of the Milky Way, we have constructed chemical evolution models for the low-mass proto-Galactic subsystems such as globular clusters (GCs). Unlike previous studies, we assume that supernova blast waves undergo blowout without expelling the pre-enriched gas, while relatively slow winds of massive stars, together with the winds and ejecta from low and intermediate mass asymptotic giant branch stars, are all locally retained in these less massive systems. We first applied these models to investigate the origin of super-helium-rich red clump stars in the metal-rich bulge as recently suggested by Lee et al. (2015). We find that chemical enrichments by the winds of massive stars can naturally reproduce the required helium enhancement (dY/dZ = 6) for the second generation stars. Disruption of these "building blocks" in a hierarchical merging paradigm would have provided helium enhanced stars to the bulge field. Interestingly, we also find that the observed Na-O anticorrelation in metal-poor GCs can be reproduced, when multiple episodes of starbursts are allowed to continue in these subsystems. Specific star formation history with decreasing time intervals between the stellar generations, however, is required to obtain this result, as would be expected from the orbital evolution of these subsystems in a proto-Galaxy. The "mass budget problem" is also much alleviated by our models without ad-hoc assumptions on star formation efficiency and initial mass function.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.46.1-46.1
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• 2018

In order to investigate the origin of multiple stellar populations in the halo and bulge of the Milky Way, we have constructed chemical evolution models for the low-mass proto-Galactic subsystems such as globular clusters. Unlike previous studies, we assume that supernova blast waves undergo blowout without expelling the pre-enriched gas, while relatively slow winds of massive stars, together with the winds and ejecta from low and intermediate mass asymptotic-giant-branch stars, are all locally retained in these less massive systems. We find that the observed Na-O anti-correlations in metal-poor GCs can be reproduced when multiple episodes of starbursts are allowed to continue in these subsystems. A specific form of star formation history with decreasing time intervals between the stellar generations, however, is required to obtain this result, which is in good agreement with the parameters obtained from our stellar evolution models for the horizontal-branch. The "mass budget problem" is also much alleviated by our models without ad-hoc assumptions on star formation efficiency and initial mass function. We also applied these models to investigate the origin of super helium-rich red clump stars in the metal-rich bulge as recently suggested by Lee et al. (2015). We find that chemical enrichments by the winds of massive stars can naturally reproduce the required helium enhancement (dY/dZ = 6) for the second-generation stars. Disruption of proto-globular clusters in a hierarchical merging paradigm would have provided helium enhanced stars to the bulge field.

• 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.

• 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.