• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.59.1-59.1
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• 2020

Extremely metal-poor (EMP; [Fe/H] < -3.0) stars are thought to be genuine second-generation of stars because they were born from relatively pristine gas chemically enriched by one or two supernovae. So, the EMP stars presumably originated from outside the Milky Way (MW) are important tracers for the early chemical evolution and assembly history of the MW. In this study, we present the preliminary results on the early assembly history of the MW inferred by associating the dynamical properties of our EMP stars with those of known substructures in the MW. We also explore the star formation history of the progenitor galaxies of our EMP stars by investigating the elemental abundances of the EMP stars associated with the substructure.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.39.2-39.2
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• 2020

Based upon the previous heritage in the complete development of the infrared imaging spectrometer, NISS (Near-infrared Imaging Spectrometer for Star formation history) onboard NEXTSat-1, we are participating in the NASA MIDEX mission (PI Institute: Caltech), the all-sky infrared spectro-photometric surveyor SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer). The SPHEREx will provide us the first all-sky infrared spectro-photometric data set to probe the origin of our Universe, to explore the origin and evolution of galaxies, and to explore whether planets around other stars could harbor life. After the SPEHREx have passed the PDR (Preliminary Design Review) on this September, the fabrication of flight hardware will be started soon. As an international partner, KASI takes part in the hardware development, the operation and the science for the SPHEREx. Here, we report the status of the SPHEREx project and the progress in the Korean participation.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.48.3-49
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• 2021

We study the process of panspermia in Milky Way-like galaxies by modeling the probability of successful travel of organic compounds between stars harboring potentially habitable planets. To this end, we apply the modified habitability recipe of Gobat & Hong (2016) to a model galaxy from the MUGS suite of zoom-in cosmological simulations. We find that, unlike habitability, which only occupies narrow dynamic range over the entire galaxy, the panspermia probability can vary be orders of magnitude between the inner (R, b = 1~4 kpc) and outer disk. However, only a small fraction of star particles have very large values of panspermia probability and, consequently, the fraction of star particles where the panspermia process is more effective than prebiotic evolution is much lower than from naïve expectations based on the ratio between panspermia probability and natural habitability. The lunar surface progressively darkens and reddens as a result of sputtering from solar wind particles and bombardment of micrometeoroids. The extent of exposure to these space weathering agents is frequently calculated as the location in a diagram of reflectance at 750 nm

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.42.2-42.2
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• 2021

Intraclusterlight (ICL) is diffuse light from stars that are bound to the clusterpotential, not to individual member galaxies. Understanding the formationmechanism of ICL provides critical information on the assembly and evolution ofthe galaxy cluster. Although there exist several competing models, the dominantproduction mechanism is still in dispute. The ICL measurement between z=1 and 2strongly constrains the formation scenario of the ICL because the epoch is whenthe first mature clusters begin to appear. However, the number of high-redshiftICL studies is small mainly because of observational challenges. In this study, based on deep HST WFC3/IR data, we measured ICL of 10 galaxy clusters atredshift beyond unity, which nearly doubles the sample size in this redshiftregime. With careful handling of systematics including object masking, skyestimation, flatfielding, dwarf galaxy contamination, etc., we quantified thetotal amount of ICL, measured the color profile, and examined the transitionbetween BCG and ICL.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.32.3-33
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• 2015

There exist scaling relations that link the mass of supermassive black holes with both the velocity dispersion and the mass of the central stellar cusp of their host galaxies. This implies that these two components grow in tandem. Feedback from actively accreting supermassive black holes (AGN), in the form of multi-phase gas outflows, has been argued to be the agent of this co-evolution. Here we employ the powerful GMOS integral field spectroscopy unit on the 8.2m Gemini-North telescope to investigate ionized gas outflows of luminous Type 2 AGN in the local Universe (z<0.1). Our sample of 6 galaxies is drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and was selected based on their [OIII] dust-corrected luminosity (>1042 erg/s) and signatures of outflows in the [OIII] line profile of their spatially integrated SDSS spectra. These are arguably the best candidates to explore AGN feedback in action since they are < 1% of a large local type 2 AGN SDSS sample selected based on their [OIII] kinematics. We combine a careful spectral decomposition of the [OIII] and $H{\alpha}$ line profiles with spatial information on ~0.5kpc scales to understand the outflow kinematics and energetics in these objects. We find clear evidence for strong outflows in [OIII] and occasionally $H{\alpha}$ that are clearly driven by the ionizing radiation of the AGN. We kinematically and spatially decompose outflowing and rotating ionized gas components. We find [OIII] to be a better tracer of AGN outflows, while $H{\alpha}$ appears to be strongly affected by both stellar rotation and outflows induced by ongoing star formation. The observed kinematics and spatial distribution of the ionized gas imply a large opening angle for the outflow. Finally, we find the projected outflow velocity to decrease as a function of distance, while its dispersion shows a more complex structure with a potentially initially increasing trend (out to 0.5-1kpc distances).

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.317-319
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• 2017

We propose a cosmological survey to probe star formation and nuclear activity in galaxies at redshifts of z=2-4 by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) features using the SPICA mid-infrared instrument (SMI) with a spectral resolution of R=20. We will cover a wavelength range of $20-36{\mu}$ that corresponds to z=2-4 for the PAH features (11.3, 7.7, and $6.2{\mu}$). The sensitivity will be $1{\times}10^{-19}W/m^2(5{\sigma})$ in case of a reference survey that covers 4 arcmin2 field in a one-hour observation. It corresponds to $L_{IR}=2{\times}10^{11}L_{\odot}$ at z=3 and will give us more than 10000 galaxies in a 450 hour survey.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.157-161
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• 2017

The dusty torus of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) is one of the important components for the unification theory of AGNs. The geometry and properties of the dusty torus are key factors in understanding the nature of AGNs as well as the formation and evolution of AGNs. However, they are still under discussion. Infrared observation is useful for understanding the dusty torus as thermal emission from hot dust with the dust sublimation temperature (~ 1500 K) has been observed in the infrared. We have analyzed infrared spectroscopic data of low-redshift and high-redshift quasars, which are luminous AGNs. For the low-redshift quasars, we constructed the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) with AKARI near-infrared and Spitzer mid-infrared spectra and decomposed the SEDs into a power-law component from the nuclei, silicate features, and blackbody components with different temperatures from the dusty torus. From the decomposition, the temperature of the innermost dusty torus shows the range between 900-2000 K. For the high-redshift quasars, AKARI traced rest-frame optical and near-infrared spectra of AGNs. Combining with WISE data, we have found that the temperature of the innermost dusty torus in high redshift quasars is lower than that in typical quasars. The hydrogen $H{\alpha}$ emission line from the braod emission line region in the quasars also shows narrow full width at half maximum of $3000-4000km\;s^{-1}$. These results indicate that the dusty torus and the broad emission line region are more extended than those of typical quasars.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.48 no.5
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• pp.299-311
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• 2015

We report first results from KVN and VERA Array (KaVA) VLBI observations obtained in the frame of our Plasma-physics of Active Galactic Nuclei (PAGaN) project. We observed eight selected AGN at 22 and 43 GHz in single polarization (LCP) between March 2014 and April 2015. Each source was observed for 6 to 8 hours per observing run to maximize the uv coverage. We obtained a total of 15 deep high-resolution images permitting the identification of individual circular Gaussian jet components and three spectral index maps of BL Lac, 3C 111 and 3C 345 from simultaneous dual-frequency observations. The spectral index maps show trends in agreement with general expectations – flat core and steep jets – while the actual value of the spectral index for jets shows indications for a dependence on AGN type. We analyzed the kinematics of jet components of BL Lac and 3C 111, detecting superluminal proper motions with maximum apparent speeds of about 5c. This constrains the lower limits of the intrinsic component velocities to ~ 0.98c and the upper limits of the angle between jet and line of sight to ~20°. In agreement with global jet expansion, jet components show systematically larger diameters d at larger core distances r, following the global relation d ≈ 0.2r, albeit within substantial scatter.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.39.4-40
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• 2016

We aim to investigate formation of satellite sub-galactic structures around isolated dwarf galaxies using cosmological hydrodynamic zoom simulations. For this, we modify a cosmological hydrodynamic code, GADGET-3, in a way that includes gas cooling down to T~10K, gas heating by universal reionization when z < 8.9, UV shielding for high density regions of $n_{shield}$ > $0.014cm^{-3}$, star formation in the dense regions ($n_H$ > $100cm^{-3}$), and supernova feedback. To get good statistics, we perform three different simulations for different target galaxies of the same mass of ${\sim}10^{10}M_{sun}$. Each simulation starts in a cubic box of a side length of 1Mpc/h with 17 million particles from z = 49. The mass of dark matter (DM) and gas particle is $M_{DM}=4.1{\times}10^3M_{sun}$ and $M_{gas}=7.9{\times}10^2M_{sun}$, respectively, thus each satellite sub-galactic structure can be resolved with more than hundreds or thousands particles. We analyze total 90 sub-galactic structures that have formed outside of the main halos but infall the main halos. We found that 1) mini halos that interact more with the other mini halos tend to accrete the more mass, 2) mini halos that interact more before the reionization tend to form more stars, 3) mini halos with the more interaction tend to approach closer to the galactic center and have the lower orbital circularity, 4) survivals even in the strong tidal fields evolve baryon dominated system, such as globular clusters.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.167-175
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• 2003

There is accumulating evidence for a strong link between nuclear starbursts and AGN. Molecular gas in the central regions of galaxies plays a critical role in fueling nuclear starburst activity and feeding central AGN. The dense molecular ISM is accreted to the nuclear regions by stellar bars and galactic interactions. Here we describe recent observational results for the OB star forming regions in M51 and the nuclear star burst in Arp 220 - both of which have approximately the same rate of star formation per unit mass of ISM. We suggest that the maximum efficiency for forming young stars is an Eddington-like limit imposed by the radiation pressure of newly formed stars acting on the interstellar dust. This limit corresponds to approximately 500 $L_{\bigodot} / M_{\bigodot}$ for optically thick regions in which the radiation has been degraded to the NIR. Interestingly, we note that some of the same considerations can be important in AGN where the source of fuel is provided by stellar evolution mass-loss or ISM accretion. Most of the stellar mass-loss occurs from evolving red giant stars and whether their mass-loss can be accreted to a central AGN or not depends on the radiative opacity of the mass-loss material. The latter depends on whether the dust survives or is sublimated (due to radiative heating). This, in turn, is determined by the AGN luminosity and the distance of the mass-loss stars from the AGN. Several AGN phenomena such as the broad emission and absorption lines may arise in this stellar mass-loss material. The same radiation pressure limit to the accretion may arise if the AGN fuel is from the ISM since the ISM dust-to-gas ratio is the same as that of stellar mass-loss.