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

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.47 no.1
• /
• pp.1-13
• /
• 2014

We analyze the dependence of disk morphology (arm class, Hubble type, bar type) of nearby spiral galaxies on the galaxy environment by using local background density (${\Sigma}_n$), projected distance ($r_p$), and tidal index (T I) as measures of the environment. There is a strong dependence of arm class and Hubble type on the galaxy environment, while the bar type exhibits a weak dependence with a high frequency of SB galaxies in high density regions. Grand design fractions and early-type fractions increase with increasing ${\Sigma}_n$, $1/r_p$, and T I, while fractions of flocculent spirals and late-type spirals decrease. Multiple-arm and intermediate-type spirals exhibit nearly constant fractions with weak trends similar to grand design and early-type spirals. While bar types show only a marginal dependence on ${\Sigma}_n$, they show a fairly clear dependence on $r_p$ with a high frequency of SB galaxies at small $r_p$. The arm class also exhibits a stronger correlation with $r_p$ than ${\Sigma}_n$ and T I, whereas the Hubble type exhibits similar correlations with ${\Sigma}_n$ and $r_p$. This suggests that the arm class is mostly affected by the nearest neighbor while the Hubble type is affected by the local densities contributed by neighboring galaxies as well as the nearest neighbor.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.38 no.2
• /
• pp.47.2-47.2
• /
• 2013

We present ultraviolet (UV) color-magnitude relations (CMRs) of early-type dwarf galaxies in the Viro cluster, combining Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) UV data with SDSS optical data, based on the Extended Virgo Cluster catalog (EVCC). We find that dwarf lenticular galaxies (dS0s) show a surprisingly distinct and tight locus separated from that of ordinary dEs, which is not clearly seen in previous CMRs. The dS0s in UV CMRs follow a steeper sequence than dEs and show bluer UV-optical color at a given magnitude. We explore the observed CMRs with population models of a luminosity-dependent delayed exponential star formation history. The observed CMR of dS0s is well matched by models with relatively long delayed star formation. The dS0s are most likely transitional objects at the stage of subsequent transformation of late-type progenitors to ordinary red dEs in the cluster environment. Most early type dwarf galaxies with blue UV colors (FUV-r < 6 and NUV-r < 4) are identified as those showing spectroscopic hints of recent or ongoing star formation activities. In any case UV photometry provides a powerful teel to disentangle the diverse subpopulations of early-type dwarf galaxies and uncover their evolutionary histories. lenticular galaxies, and irregular high surface brightness (HSB) galaxies, respectively. Dwarf elliptical galaxies and dwarf irregular LSB galaxies occupy the similar structural parameter spaces. We suggest that giant elliptical galaxies and dwarf elliptical galaxies may have different origin.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.30 no.2
• /
• pp.487-488
• /
• 2015

In type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) cosmology, a well-established correlation exists between the mass of host galaxies and the Hubble residual (HR) of SNe Ia. In order to investigate the origin of this correlation, we used low-resolution spectroscopic data of early-type host galaxies obtained from our YOnsei Nearby Supernovae Evolution Investigation (YONSEI) project. We measured velocity dispersions and Lick/IDS absorption line indices from these fully calibrated spectra. These indices were used to estimate the luminosity-weighted mean age, metallicity and mass of host galaxies. We found a tight correlation between host mass and population age, which is consistent with the "downsizing" trend in early-type galaxies. This suggests that the well-established correlation between HR and host mass is most likely due to the difference in population age. More observations, which are in progress, are required to understand the impact of luminosity evolution on SNe Ia cosmology.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.39 no.2
• /
• pp.56.2-56.2
• /
• 2014

We present an extensive study of the environment of galaxies with bars in the low-redshift Uni-verse, using a volume-limited sample of over 30,000 galaxies drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, with visually-determined morphological classifications and bar identifications. We use four different statistics to quantify the environment of our galaxies: the projected two-point cross-correlation function with respect to a spectroscopic sample of reference galaxies, the background-subtracted number count of galaxies in a deep photometric sample in the vicinity of our galaxies, the overdensity of the local environment estimated at ~3 Mpc scale from the three-dimensional reconstruction of the cosmic density field of the local Universe, and the membership of our galaxies in the SDSS galaxy groups to segregate central to satellite systems. We find a weak, but significant trend for early-type galaxies with a bar to be more strongly clustered on scales from a few 100 kpc to 1 Mpc, when compared to early-type galaxies without a bar. For late-type galaxies, we find less neighbours within ~50 kpc around the barred late-types when compared to the unbarred late-types. For late-type galaxies we also detect a decrease of the bar fraction for dark matter dominated systems, and finally we find no obvious correlation between the overdensity and the fraction of barred galaxies in our sample.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.35 no.2
• /
• pp.28.1-28.1
• /
• 2010

Recent surveys have shown that many early-type galaxies have signatures of ongoing or recent star formation (RSF). These RSF galaxies show blue integrated UV-optical colours that set them aside in the NUV integrated colour-magnitude relation. Among them, NGC 4150 has been observed using the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) on board the Hubble Space Telescope to inspect the galaxy with higher spatial resolution. In the WFC3 data, the galaxy reveals ubiquitous near-UV emission and remarkable dusty substructure. Our analysis shows this galaxy to lie in the near-UV green valley, and its pixel-by-pixel photometry exhibits a narrow range of UV-optical colours that are similar to those of nearby E+A (post-starburst) galaxies, and lie between those of M83 (an actively star-forming spiral) and the local quiescent early-type galaxy population. This work reaffirms our hypothesis that minor mergers play a significant role in the evolution of early-type galaxies at late epochs.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.42 no.2
• /
• pp.39.1-39.1
• /
• 2017

The standard hierarchical galaxy formation scenario in the popular LCDM cosmogony has been very successful in explaining the large-scale distribution of galaxies. However, one of the failures of the theory is that it predicts too many satellite galaxies associated with massive galaxies compared to observations, which is called the missing satellite galaxy problem. Isolated groups of galaxies hosted by passively evolving massive early-type galaxies are ideal laboratories for finding the missing physics in the current theory. We discover through a deep spectroscopic survey of galactic satellite systems that bright isolated early-type galaxies have almost no satellite galaxies fainter than the r-band absolute magnitude of about Mr=-14. The cutoff is at somewhat brighter magnitude of about Mr=-15 when only early-type satellites are used. Such a cutoff is not observed in the luminosity function of galaxies in the field. Physical properties of the observed satellites depend sensitively on the host-centric distance. All these are strong evidence that galactic satellites can become invisible due to astrophysics of satellite-host galaxy interaction. A recent state-of-the-art hydrodynamic simulation of galaxy formation does not reproduce such a cutoff in the satellite galaxy luminosity function. But the past history of the simulated satellites shows that many satellite galaxies near or somewhat fainter than the cutoff magnitude have recently become extinct through fatal encounters with the host or other satellite galaxies. Our observation indicates that the missing satellite galaxy problem could be mitigated if the astrophysics of galaxy interaction is more elaborated in the theory.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.36 no.1
• /
• pp.57.1-57.1
• /
• 2011

It has been suggested that merging plays an important role in the formation and the evolution of early-type galaxies (ETGs). Optical-NIR color gradients of ETGs in high density environments are found to be less steep than those of ETGs in low density environments, hinting frequent merger activities in ETGs in high density environments. In order to examine if the flat color gradients are the result of dry mergers, we studied the relations between merging features, color gradient, and environments of 281 low redshift ETGs selected from Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Stripe82. The sample contains 222 relaxed ETGs, 38 ETGs with tidal features, 10 galaxies with dust features and 11 galaxies with tidal and dust features, and Near Infrared (NIR) images are taken from UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) Large Area Survey (LAS). We find that r-K color gradients of field sample galaxies are steeper than those of sample ETGs within cluster environments. For the field sample galaxies, a relatively large number of galaxies with peculiar features contribute to the steeper color gradients, while the absence of these peculiar early-type galaxies make color gradients of the cluster sample galaxies intact. In high density environment, ETGs are already evolved and relaxed, resulting flat color gradients. However, in low density environments, a majority of ETGs undergone merging recently which makes the color gradients steep.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.36 no.2
• /
• pp.65-65
• /
• 2011

Early-type galaxies represent the end point of galaxy evolution and, despite pervasive residual star formation, are generally considered "red and dead", that is composed exclusively of old stars with no star formation. Here, their molecular gas content is constrained and discussed in relation to their evolution, supporting the continuing importance of minor mergers and/or cold gas accretion. First, as part of the Atlas3D survey, the first complete, large, volume-limited survey of CO in normal early-type galaxies is presented. At least of 23% of local early-types possess a substantial amount of molecular gas, the necessary ingredient for star formation, independent of mass and environment but dependent on the specific stellar angular momentum. Second, using CO synthesis imaging, the extent of the molecular gas is constrained and a variety of morphologies is revealed. The kinematics of the molecular gas and stars are often misaligned, implying an external gas origin in over a third of all systems, more than half in the field, while external gas accretion must be shot down in clusters. Third, many objects appear to be in the process of forming regular kpc-size decoupled disks, and a star formation sequence can be sketched by piecing together multi-wavelength information on the molecular gas, current star formation, and young stars. Fourth, early-type galaxies do not seem to systematically obey all our usual prejudices regarding star formation (e.g. Schmidt-Kennicutt law, far infrared-radio continuum correlation), suggesting a greater diversity in star formation processes than observed in disk galaxies and the possibility of "morphological quenching". Lastly, a first step toward constraining the physical properties of the molecular gas is taken, by modeling the line ratios of density- and opacity-sensitive molecules in a few objects. Taken together, these observations argue for the continuing importance of (minor) mergers and cold gas accretion in local early-types, and they provide a much greater understanding of the gas cycle in the galaxies harbouring most of the stellar mass. In the future, better dust masses and dust-to-gas mass ratios from Herschel should allow to place entirely independent constraints on the gas supply, while spatially-resolved high-density molecular gas tracers observed with ALMA will probe the interstellar medium and star formation laws locally in a regime entirely different from that normally probed in spiral galaxies.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
• /
• v.41 no.5
• /
• pp.109-119
• /
• 2008

We present an optical-infrared photometric study of galaxies in six nearby clusters of galaxies at $z=0.041{\sim}0.098$ (A1436, A1773, A1809, A2048, A2142, and A2152). Using BV I photometry obtained at the Bohyunsan Optical Astronomical observatory and $JHK_S$ photometry extracted from the 2-Micron All-Sky Survey catalog, we investigate the colors of galaxies in the clusters. Using the (B - V) versus ($I\;-\;K_S$) color-color diagrams in comparison with the simple stellar population model, we estimate the ages and metallicities of bright early-type member galaxies. Early-type galaxies in each cluster show the color-magnitude relation. Ages and metallicities of early-type members show little dependence on their velocity dispersions. Mean ages of early-types in the clusters range from 3 Gyr to 20 Gyr, showing a large dispersion, and mean metallicities range from Z = 0.03 to 0.05 above the solar value, showing a negligible dispersion.