• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.443-445
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• 2015

We provide results of near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopic observations of 83 nearby (0.002< z <0.48) and bright (K <14 mag) type 1 active galactic nuclei (AGNs). For the observations, we used the Infrared Camera (IRC) on AKARI allowing us to obtain the spectrum in the rarely studied spectral range of $2.5-5.0{\mu}m$. The $2.5-5.0{\mu}m$ spectral region suffers less dust extinction than ultra violet (UV) or optical wavelength ranges, and contains several important emission lines such as $Br{\beta}$ ($2.63{\mu}m$), $Br{\alpha}$ ($4.05{\mu}m$), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH; $3.3{\mu}m$). The sample is selected from the bright quasar surveys of Palomar Green and SNUQSO, and AGNs with black hole (BH) masses estimated from reverberation mapping method. We measure the Brackett line properties for 11 AGNs, which enable us to derive BH mass estimators and investigate circum-nuclear environments. Moreover, we perform spectral modeling to fit the hot and warm dust components by adding photometric data from SDSS, 2MASS, WISE, and ISO to the AKARI spectra, and estimate hot and warm dust temperatures of ~1100K and ~220 K, respectively.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.29.1-29.1
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• 2017

I present new near-infrared (NIR) photometry of globular cluster (GC) systems associated to a cD galaxy NGC 4874 in the core of the Coma cluster and 16 early-type galaxies in the Fornax and Virgo clusters of galaxies using the Infrared Channel of the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3/IR) on board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Combining these high-resolution NIR data with new HST Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) optical photometry for NGC 4874 and existing ACS GC catalogs from the ACS Fornax and Virgo Cluster Surveys, I have examined for the first time the GC systems in a statistically significant optical/NIR sample of galaxies spanning a wide range of luminosities and colors. A primary goal of this study is to explore empirically whether the distributions of purely optical and hybrid optical - NIR color indices for extragalactic GCs have different forms and whether the relations between these color indices are nonlinear, indicating that they behave differently with underlying metallicity. I find that some GC systems of large galaxies in our sample show color bimodalities that differ between the optical and optical - NIR colors, in the sense that they have disparate ratios of "blue" and "red" peak GCs, as well as differing ratios in their color dispersions. Consistent with these results, I find empirically that the dependence of hybrid optical-NIR color on purely optical color is nonlinear, with an inflection at intermediate metallicities. These findings underscore the importance of understanding the nature of galaxy-to-galaxy variations in the GC color distributions and color-color relations, as well as the exact forms of the color-metallicity transformations, in interpreting the observational data on GC color bimodality. Our ACS data for NGC 4874 shows that its GC system exhibits a very strong blue tilt, implying a very steep mass-metallicity scaling, and the centroid of this GC system is offset by $4{\pm}1kpc$ from the luminosity center of NGC 4874, in the direction of NGC 4872. Finally, I discuss the asymmetrical GC distribution around a dwarf elliptical galaxy in Coma that has a very high relative velocity with respect to the cluster mean at small clustercentric radius.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.97-99
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• 2017

Our understanding of dust emission, interaction, and evolution, is evolving. In recent years, electric dipole emission by spinning dust has been suggested to explain the anomalous microwave excess (AME), appearing between 10 and 90 Ghz. The observed frequencies suggest that spinning grains should be on the order of 10nm in size, hinting at polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon molecules (PAHs). We present data from the AKARI/Infrared Camera (IRC) due to its high sensitivity to the PAH bands. By inspecting the IRC data for a few AME regions, we find a preliminary indication that regions well-fitted by a spinning-dust model have a higher $9{\mu}m$ than $18{\mu}m$ intensity vs. non-spinning-dust regions. Ongoing efforts to improve the analysis by using DustEM and including data from the AKARI Far Infrared Surveyor (FIS), IRAS, and Planck High Frequency Instrument (HFI) are described.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.97-115
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• 2023

We present the deep homogeneous UBV RI photometric data of 135,071 stars down to V ~ 23 mag and I ~ 22 mag toward the Carina Nebula. These stars are cross-matched with those from the previous surveys in the X-ray, near-infrared, and mid-infrared wavelengths as well as the Gaia Early Data Release 3 (EDR3). This master catalog allows us to select reliable members and determine the fundamental parameters distance, size, stellar density of stellar clusters in this star-forming region. We revisit the reddening toward the nebula using the optical and the near-infrared colors of early-type stars. The foreground reddening [E(B-V)_fg] is determined to be 0.35 ± 0.02, and it seems to follow the standard reddening law. On the other hand, the total-to-selective extinction ratio of the intracluster medium (R_V,cl) decreases from the central region (Trumpler 14 and 16, R_V,cl ~ 4.5) to the northern region (Trumpler 15, R_V,cl ~ 3.4). It implies that the central region is more dusty than the northern region. We find that the distance modulus of the Carina Nebula to be 11.9 ± 0.3 mag (d = 2.4 ± 0.35 kpc) using a zero-age main-sequence fitting method, which is in good agreement with that derived from the Gaia EDR3 parallaxes. We also present the catalog of 3,331 pre-main-sequence (PMS) members and 14,974 PMS candidates down to V ~ 22 mag based on spectrophotometric properties of young stars at infrared, optical, and X-ray wavelengths. From the spatial distribution of PMS members and PMS candidates, we confirm that the member selection is very reliable down to faint stars. Our data will have a legacy value for follow-up studies with different scientific purposes.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.317-320
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• 2012

A sample of nearby galaxies was built from the AKARI/FIS all sky survey cross-correlated with the SDSS and GALEX surveys. The spectral energy distributions from 0.15 to 160 microns of these galaxies are analysed to study dust attenuation and star formation properties. The calibrations of the amount of dust attenuation as a function of the IR-to-UV flux ratio and the FUV-NUV colour are re-investigated: the former one is confirmed to be robust and accurate whereas the use of the FUV-NUV colour to measure dust attenuation is found highly uncertain. The current star formation rate given by the SED fitting process is compared to that directly obtained from the UV and total IR luminosities. It leads to an accurate estimate of dust heating by old stars. We emphasize the importance of such a sample as a reference for IR selected star forming galaxies in the nearby universe.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.71.3-71.3
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• 2015

Deep UBVI and $H{\alpha}$ photometry of the ${\eta}$ Carina nebula, one of the brightest nebulae on the sky, was obtained with the CTIO 4m telescope and MOSAIC II CCD Camera to determine the initial mass function down to low-mass (~1 M¤) stars. We modified the spatial variation coefficients in transformation relations of the MOSAIC II CCD. From the cross-identification of optical sources with previous surveys in X-ray, near-infrared, and mid-infrared, a clear PMS sequence is revealed in the optical color-magnitude diagrams down to V=23 mag. Our previous SSO 1m UBVI data for Trumpler 14 (Tr 14) and Trumpler 16 (Tr 16) region, and additional SSO 1m UBVI data for Trumpler 15 (Tr 15) region were combined with the CTIO 4m data to re-examine the reddening law and distance of the young open clusters in the ${\eta}$ Carina nebula. From the new photometric data for Tr 15 region, we report that RV[=AV/E(B-V)], the total-to-selective extinction ratio, decreases from southern part of the nebula (Tr 14 and Tr 16) to northern part (Tr 15) in our field of view.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.367-373
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• 2012

The first all-sky mid-/far-infrared survey by IRAS in the 1980s, has been followed by only two more, by AKARI, from 2006, and WISE in 2010. I discuss some features of the WISE survey, and highlight some key results from early extragalactic observations that have been made by the science team during the operation of the telescope, and the post-operation proprietary period during which the public release data products were being generated. The efficient survey strategy and very high-data rate from WISE produced a catalogue of 530 million objects that was released to the public in March 2012. The WISE survey strategy naturally provided the deepest coverage at the ecliptic poles, where matched comparison fields were obtained using Spitzer, and where AKARI also observed deep fields. I describe some of the follow-up work that has been carried out based on the WISE survey, and the prospects for enhancing the WISE data by combining the AKARI survey results are also discussed. While the all-sky AKARI survey is less deep than the WISE catalogue, and is still being worked on by the AKARI science team, it includes a larger number of bands, extends to longer wavelengths, and in particular has very complementary band passes to WISE in the mid-infrared waveband, which will provide enhanced spectral information for relatively bright targets.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.151-153
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• 2017

Early-type galaxies (ETGs) are generally dominated by old low-mass stars, which are not very productive of dust, and hot interstellar plasmas, which are very destructive of dust. Thus ETGs provide harsh environments for survival of dust. It has been found that some ETGs contain a large amount of dust, and yet its supply mechanism is not understood well. We present the result of a systematic study of dust in ETGs with the AKARI mid- and far-infrared all-sky surveys. From the AKARI result and the Ks band data obtained by ground-based telescopes, we find that there is a global correlation between the dust mass and stellar luminosity. We also compare the AKARI all-sky survey result with the CO data to discuss origins of dust in ETGs.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.5-9
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• 2017

This paper provides an overview of the AKARI mission, which was the first Japanese satellite dedicated to infrared astronomy. The AKARI satellite was launched in 2006, and performed both an all-sky survey and pointed observations during its 550 days in the He-cooled mission phases (Phases 1 and 2). After the He ran out, we continued near-infrared observations with mechanical cryocoolers (Phase 3). Due to a failure of its power supply, AKARI was turned off in 2011. The AKARI data are unique in terms of the observed wavelengths as well as the sky coverage, and provide a unique legacy resource for many astronomical studies. Since April 2013, a dedicated new team has been working to refine the AKARI data processing. The goal of this activity is to provide processed datasets for most of the AKARI observations in a Science Ready form, so that more users can utilize the AKARI data in their astronomical research. The data to be released will include revised All-Sky Point Source Catalogues, All-Sky Image Maps, as well as high-sensitivity images and spectra obtained by pointed observations. We expect that the data will be made public by in the Spring of 2016.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.21-23
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• 2017

We present a comparative study of CO and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emission toward a region including the massive star-forming regions of NGC 6334 and NGC 6357. We use the NANTEN $^{12}CO(J=1-0)$ data and the AKARI $9{\mu}m$ All-Sky diffuse map in order to evaluate the calibration accuracy of the AKARI data. We confirm that the overall CO distribution shows a good spatial correspondence with the PAH emission, and their intensities exhibit a good power-law correlation with a spatial resolution down to 4' over the region of $10^{\circ}{\times}10^{\circ}$. We also reveal poorer correlation for small scale structures between the two quantities toward NGC 6357, due to strong UV radiation from local sources. Larger scatter in the correlation toward NGC 6357 indicates higher ionization degree and/or PAH excitation than that of NGC 6334.