• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.527-531
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• 2004

It is argued that the key task in understanding magnetic fields in the cosmos is to comprehend the origin of their order or coherence over large length scales in galaxies. Obtaining magnetic fields can be done in stars, whose lifetime is usually $10^{10}$ rotations, while galactic disks have approximately 20 to 50 rotations in their lifetime since the last major merger, which established the present day gaseous disk. Disorder in the galactic magnetic fields is injected on the disk time scale of about 30 million years, about a tenth of the rotation period, so after one half rotation already it should become completely disordered. Therefore whatever mechanism Nature is using, it must compete with such a short time scale, to keep order in its house. This is the focal quest.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.315-322
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• 2004

Several arguments have been presented in the literature to support the connection between radio halos and cluster mergers. The spectral index distributions of the halos in A665 and A2163 provide a new strong confirmation of this connection, i.e. of the fact that the cluster merger plays an important role in the energy supply to the radio halos. Features of the spectral index (flattening and patches) are indication of a complex shape of the radiating electron spectrum, and are therefore in support of electron reacceleration models. Regions of flatter spectrum are found to be related to the recent merger. In the undisturbed cluster regions, instead, the spectrum steepens with the distance from the cluster center. The plot of the integrated spectral index of a sample of halos versus the cluster temperature indicates that clusters at higher temperature tend to host halos with flatter spectra. This correlation provides further evidence of the connection between radio emission and cluster mergers.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.69.1-69.1
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• 2013

We describe a survey of quasars in the early universe beyond z=5, which is one of the main sciences of the Infrared Medium-deep Survey (IMS) performed by the Center for the Exploration of the Origin of the Universe (CEOU). We use multi-wavelength archival data such as SDSS, CFHTLS, UKIDSS, and SWIRE, which provide deep images over wide areas sufficient enough for searching high redshift quasars. In addition, we carried out a J-band imaging survey at the United Kingdom InfraRed Telescope (UKIRT) with a depth of ~23 AB and survey area of ~100 $deg^2$, which makes IMS the most suitable survey for finding high redshift quasars at z~7. Also for the quasar candidates at z~5.5, we are conducting observations with the Camera for QUasars in EArly uNiverse (CQUEAN), which are efficient for selecting robust quasar candidate samples in this redshift range. We used various color-color diagrams suitable to the specific redshift ranges, which can reduce the contaminating sources such as M/L/T dwarfs, low redshift galaxies, and instrumental defects. The high redshift quasars we are confirming can provide us with clues to the growth of super massive black holes since z~7. Also by expanding the quasar sample at 5

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.111-121
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• 2003

In order to explore the cosmic ray acceleration at the cosmological shocks, we have performed numerical simulations of one-dimensional, plane-parallel, cosmic ray (CR) modified shocks with the newly developed CRASH (Cosmic Ray Amr SHock) numerical code. Based on the hypothesis that strong Alfven waves are self-generated by streaming CRs, the Bohm diffusion model for CRs is adopted. The code includes a plasma-physics-based 'injection' model that transfers a small proportion of the thermal proton flux through the shock into low energy CRs for acceleration there. We found that, for strong accretion shocks with Mach numbers greater than 10, CRs can absorb most of shock kinetic energy and the accretion shock speed is reduced up to $20\%$, compared to pure gas dynamic shocks. Although the amount of kinetic energy passed through accretion shocks is small, since they propagate into the low density intergalactic medium, they might possibly provide acceleration sites for ultra-high energy cosmic rays of $E\ll10^{18}eV$. For internal/merger shocks with Mach numbers less than 3, however, the energy transfer to CRs is only about $10-20\%$ and so nonlinear feedback due to the CR pressure is insignificant. Considering that intracluster medium (ICM) can be shocked repeatedly, however, the CRs generated by these weak shocks could be sufficient to explain the observed non-thermal signatures from clusters of galaxies.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.455-460
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• 2004

There have been many speculations about the presence of cosmic ray protons (CRps) in galaxy clusters over the past two decades. However, no direct evidence such as the characteristic $\gamma$-ray signature of decaying pions has been found so far. These pions would be a direct tracer of hadronic CRp interactions with the ambient thermal gas also yielding observable synchrotron and inverse Compton emission by additionally produced secondary electrons. The obvious question concerns the type of galaxy clusters most likely to yield a signal: Particularly suited sites should be cluster cooling cores due to their high gas and magnetic energy densities. We studied a nearby sample of clusters evincing cooling cores in order to place stringent limits on the cluster CRp population by using non-detections of EGRET. In this context, we examined the possibility of a hadronic origin of Coma-sized radio halos as well as radio mini-halos. Especially for mini-halos, strong clues are provided by the very plausible small amount of required CRp energy density and a matching radio profile. Introducing the hadronic minimum energy criterion, we show that the energetically favored CRp energy density is constrained to $2\%{\pm}1\%$ of the thermal energy density in Perseus. We also studied the CRp population within the cooling core region of Virgo using the TeV $\gamma$-ray detection of M 87 by HEGRA. Both the expected radial $\gamma$-ray profile and the required amount of CRp support this hadronic scenario.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.427-431
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• 2004

We use simulations of large-scale structure formation to study the build-up of magnetic fields (MFs) in the intergalactic medium. Our basic assumption is that cosmological MFs grow in a magnetohy-drodynamical (MHD) amplification process driven by structure formation out of a magnetic seed field present at high redshift. This approach is motivated by previous simulations of the MFs in galaxy clusters which, under the same hypothesis that we adopt here, succeeded in reproducing Faraday rotation measurements (RMs) in clusters of galaxies. Our ACDM initial conditions for the dark matter density fluctuations have been statistically constrained by the observed large-scale density field within a sphere of 110 Mpc around the Milky Way, based on the IRAS 1.2-Jy all-sky redshift survey. As a result, the positions and masses of prominent galaxy clusters in our simulation coincide closely with their real counterparts in the Local Universe. We find excellent agreement between RMs of our simulated galaxy clusters and observational data. The improved numerical resolution of our simulations compared to previous work also allows us to study the MF in large-scale filaments, sheets and voids. By tracing the propagation of ultra high energy (UHE) protons in the simulated MF we construct full-sky maps of expected deflection angles of protons with arrival energies $E = 10^{20}\;eV$ and $4 {\times} 10^{19}\;eV$, respectively. Accounting only for the structures within 110 Mpc, we find that strong deflections are only produced if UHE protons cross galaxy clusters. The total area on the sky covered by these structures is however very small. Over still larger distances, multiple crossings of sheets and filaments may give rise to noticeable deflections over a significant fraction of the sky; the exact amount and angular distribution depends on the model adopted for the magnetic seed field. Based on our results we argue that over a large fraction of the sky the deflections are likely to remain smaller than the present experimental angular sensitivity. Therefore, we conclude that forthcoming air shower experiments should be able to locate sources of UHE protons and shed more light on the nature of cosmological MFs.