• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.189-212
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• 2003

I review the current status of understanding when, how long, and how giant elliptical galaxies formed, focusing on the globular clusters. Several observational evidences show that massive elliptical galaxies formed at z > 2 (> 10 Gyr ago). Giant elliptical galaxies show mostly a bimodal color distribution of globular clusters, indicating a factor of $\approx$ 20 metallicity difference between the two peaks. The red globular clusters (RGCs) are closely related with the stellar halo in color and spatial distribution, while the blue globular clusters (BGCs) are not. The ratio of the number of the RGCs and that of the BGCs varies depending on galaxies. It is concluded that the BGCs might have formed 12-13 Gyr ago, while the RGCs and giant elliptical galaxies might have formed similarly 10-11 Gyr ago. It remains now to explain the existence of a gap between the RGC formation epoch and the BGC formation epoch, and the rapid metallicity increase during the gap (${\Delta}t{\approx}$ 2 Gyr). If hierarchical merging can form a significant number of giant elliptical galaxies > 10 Gyr ago, several observational constraints from stars and globular clusters in elliptical galaxies can be explained.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.65-69
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• 2010

Observations of large samples of galaxies from low to high redshifts are composing a picture of remarkable simplicity: (1) The star formation rate (SFR) of starforming galaxies scales almost linearly with mass, strongly decline with cosmic time, and exhibits very small scatter around the average relation. (2) Due to the high observed SFRs the mass of galaxies at high redshifts must increase very rapidly, and yet the mass function of star forming galaxies evolves only very slightly with redshift. (3) At all redshifts the fraction of quenched (passively evolving) galaxies increases with galactic stellar mass and with local overdensity, with the remarkable property that the relative efficiency of "mass quenching" is independent of environment, and that of "environment quenching" is independent of mass. In a recent paper by the zCOSMOS collaboration, Peng et al. (2010) demonstrate that these three empirical facts suffice to account for the observed evolution of the galaxy mass function and naturally generate the "double-Schechter" mass function for quenched galaxies.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.59.2-59.2
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• 2011

Constraining physical (or stellar population) properties - such as stellar mass, star-formation rate, stellar population age, and dust-extinction - of galaxies from observation is crucial in the study of galaxy evolution. This is very challenging especially for high-redshift galaxies, and a widely-used method to estimate physical properties of high-redshift galaxies is to compare their photometric spectral energy distributions (SEDs) to spectral templates from stellar population synthesis models. I will show that the SED-fitting results of high-redshift galaxies are strongly dependent on the assumed forms of star-formation histories. I will also present the results of SED-fitting analysis of observed Lyman-break galaxies which show that parametric models with gradually increasing star-formation histories provide better estimates of physical parameters of high-redshift (z>3) star-forming galaxies than traditionally-used exponentially declining star-formation histories. This result is also consistent with the predictions from the modern galaxy formation models.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.331-334
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• 2012

We investigate the role of galaxy environment in the evolution of individual galaxies through the AKARI observations of the merging galaxy cluster A2255. MIR diagnostics using N3-S11 colors are adopted to select star-forming galaxies and galaxies in transition between star-forming galaxies and quiescent galaxies. We do not find particular enhancement of star formation rates as a function of galaxy environment, reflected in cluster-centric distance and local surface density of galaxies. Instead, the locations of intermediate MIR-excess galaxies (-1.2 < N3 - S11 < 0.2) show that star-forming galaxies are transformed into passive galaxies in the substructures of A2255, where the local surface density of galaxies is relatively high.

• Bulletin of the Korean Space Science Society
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• 2009.10a
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• pp.34.3-34.3
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• 2009

We have investigated the recent star formation history of the nearby galaxies using the SDSS optical and Galex UV data. To everyone's surprise, we found that roughly 30 percent of elliptical galaxies had a residual star formation in the last billion years, suggesting that residual star formation has been common even in ellipticals. Galaxy evolution models based on semi-analytic prescriptions including AGN feedback reasonably reproduce the star formation properties of elliptical galaxies. However, we found that the current galaxy models miserably fail to reproduce the star formation properties of satellite disc galaxies in cluster environments. Satellite disc galaxies in models are overly star-formation quenched in comparison to observation. Detailed investigations led us to conclude that this is due to the use of inaccurate prescriptions for the gas content evolution in the model. I present a solution to the problem by adopting more realistic physical prescriptions.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.54 no.1
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• pp.17-35
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• 2021

We study galaxies undergoing ram pressure stripping in the Virgo cluster to examine whether we can identify any discernible trend in their star formation activity. We first use 48 galaxies undergoing different stages of stripping based on H i morphology, H i deficiency, and relative extent to the stellar disk, from the VIVA survey. We then employ a new scheme for galaxy classification which combines H i mass fractions and locations in projected phase space, resulting in a new sample of 365 galaxies. We utilize a variety of star formation tracers, which include g - r, WISE [3.4]-[12] colors, and starburstiness that are defined by stellar mass and star formation rates to compare the star formation activity of galaxies at different stripping stages. We find no clear evidence for enhancement in the integrated star formation activity of galaxies undergoing early to active stripping. We are instead able to capture the overall quenching of star formation activity with increasing degree of ram pressure stripping, in agreement with previous studies. Our results suggest that if there is any ram pressure stripping induced enhancement, it is at best locally modest, and galaxies undergoing enhancement make up a small fraction of the total sample. Our results also indicate that it is possible to trace galaxies at different stages of stripping with the combination of H i gas content and location in projected phase space, which can be extended to other galaxy clusters that lack high-resolution H i imaging.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.91-117
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• 2004

We analyze the dependence of the mass-to-light ratio of spiral galaxies on the present star formation rate (SFR), and find that galaxies with high present star formation rates have low mass-to-light ratios, presumably as a result of the enhanced luminosity. On this basis we argue that variations in the stellar content of galaxies result in a major source of intrinsic scatter in the Tully-Fisher relation (TF relation). Ideally one should use a 'population-corrected' luminosity. We have also analyzed the relation between the (maximum) luminous mass and rotational velocity, and find it to have a small scatter. We therefore propose that the physical basis of the Tully-Fisher relation lies in a relationship between the luminous mass and rotational velocity, in combination with a 'well-behaved' relation between luminous and dark matter. This implies that the Tully-Fisher relation is a combination of two independent relations: (i) a relation between luminosity and (luminous) mass, based mainly on the star formation history in galaxies, and (ii) a relation between mass and rotation velocity, which is the outcome of the process of galaxy formation. In addition to a 'population-corrected' Tully-Fisher relation, one may also use the relation between mass and luminosity, and the relation between luminous mass and rotation velocity as distance estimators.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.47.2-47.2
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• 2015

At local, galaxy properties are well known to be clearly different in different environments. However, it is still an open question how this environment-dependent trend has been shaped. In this presentation, we will show the results of our investigation about the evolution of star-formation properties of galaxies over a wide redshift range, from z~2 to z~0.5, focusing its dependence on their stellar mass and environment. In the UKIDSS/UDS region, we estimated photometric redshifts and stellar population properties, such as stellar masses and star-formation rates, using the deep optical and near-infrared data available in this field. Then, we identified galaxy cluster candidates at z~0.5-2. Through the analysis and comparison of star-formation (SF) properties of galaxies in clusters and in field, we found interesting results regarding the evolution of SF properties of galaxies: (1) regardless of redshifts, stellar mass is a key parameter controlling quenching of star formation in galaxies; (2) At z<1, environmental effects become important at quenching star formation regardless of stellar mass of galaxies; and (3) However, the result of the environmental quenching is prominent only for low mass galaxies (M* < $10^{10}M_{\odot}$) since the star formation in most of high mass galaxies are already quenched at z > 1.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.43 no.2
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• pp.54.3-55
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• 2018

We present the physical and environmental properties of nearby dwarf elliptical-like galaxies. The present sample consists of ~ 1,100 dwarf elliptical-like galaxies within redshifts 0.01. The morphological types of the present study were determined by Ann, Seo, and Ha (2015) who classified the dwarf elliptical-like galaxies by the five subtypes of dS0, dE, dSph, dEbc, and dEblue. We examine their star formation history using STARLIGHT. The star formation history of dwarf elliptical-like galaxies depends on their subtypes. The luminosities of dS0, dE, and dSph galaxies are dominated by the extremely old stars (${\geq}10^{10}yr$) with $z{\approx}0.0004$ while those of dEbc and dEblue galaxies are mainly due to the young (${\sim}10^7yr$) stars together with the nearly equal contribution by extremely young stars (${\sim}10^6yr$) and old (${\sim}10^9yr$) stars. Young populations have a variety of metallicity, from z=0.0001 to z = 0.04, while old populations have metallicity of z = 0.0001 and z = 0.0004. While the formation history of stars older than ~1010yr depends mainly on the luminosity of galaxies, the formation history of stars younger than ~108yr is mainly affected by their environment. However, luminosity and environment are equally important for the star formation history if there is no star formation at the early phase of galaxy formation.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.40.1-40.1
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• 2019

We utilize times since infall of cluster galaxies obtained from Yonsei Zoom-in Cluster Simulation (YZiCS), the cosmological hydrodynamic N-body simulations, and star formation rates from the SDSS data release 10 to study how quickly late-type galaxies are quenched in the cluster environments. In particular, we confirm that the distributions of both simulated and observed galaxies in phase-space diagrams are comparable and that each location of phase-space can provide the information of times since infall and star formation rates of cluster galaxies. Then, by limiting the location of phase-space of simulated and observed galaxies, we associate their star formation rates at z ~ 0.08 with times since infall using an abundance matching technique that employs the 10 quantiles of each probability distribution. Using a flexible quenching model covering different quenching scenarios, we find the star formation history of satellite galaxies that best reproduces the obtained relationship between time since infall and star formation rate at z ~ 0.08. Based on the derived star formation history, we constrain the quenching timescale (2 - 7 Gyr) with a clear stellar mass trend and confirm that the refined model is consistent with the "delayed-then-rapid" quenching scenario: the constant delayed phase as ~ 2.3 Gyr and the quenching efficiencies (i.e., e-folding timescale) outside and inside clusters as ~ 2 - 4 Gyr (${\propto}M_*^{-1}$) and 0.5 - 1.5 Gyr (${\propto}M_*^{-2}$), Finally, we suggest: (i) ram-pressure is the main driver of quenching of satellite galaxies for the local Universe, (ii) the quenching trend on stellar mass at z > 0.5 indicates other quenching mechanisms as the main driver.