• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.48.4-49
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• 2015

Stellar spiral arms and magnetic fields in disk galaxies are important in the formation of gaseous structures such as spurs/feathers and wiggles as well as in angular momentum transport between stars and gas. We present our recent results of global magnetohydrodynamic simulations to study nonlinear responses of self-gravitating and magnetized gas to an imposed stellar spiral potential. We vary the arm strength, the arm pattern speed, and magnetic field strength to explore various galactic situations. Magnetic fields not only reduce the peak density of galactic spiral shocks but also make angular momentum transport more efficient via magnetic pressure and tension forces. The extent and shapes of gaseous arms as well as the radial mass drift rate depend rather sensitively on the magnetic field strength. The wiggle instability apparent in unmagnetized models is suppressed with increasing magnetic field strength, while magnetic fields promote the development of magneto-Jeans instability of the arms and magnetic islands in between arms. We quantify the angular momentum transport by spiral shocks, focusing on the effects of magnetic fields. We also present physical interpretations of our numerical results and discuss astronomical implications of our findings.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.44.3-45
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• 2018

Magnetic fields affect star formation in a broad range of scales from parsec to hundreds au. In particular, interferometric observations and ideal magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) simulations have reported that formation of a rotation-supported disk at the earliest young stellar objects (YSOs) is largely suppressed by magnetic fields aligned to the rotational axis of YSOs: magnetic braking. Our recent ALMA observations toward L1448 IRS 2, which has a rotation detected and its magnetic fields aligned to the rotation axis (poloidal fields) in ~500 au scales, show that the fields switch to toroidal at the center in ~100 au scales. This result suggests that magnetic braking may not be so catastrophic for early disk formation even in YSOs with magnetic fields aligned to the rotational axis.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.59-66
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• 2022

Stellar magnetic activity is important for formulating the evolution of the star. To represent the stellar magnetic activity, the S index is defined using the Ca II H+K flux measure from the Mount Wilson Observatory. Mg II lines are generated in a manner similar to the formation of Ca II lines, which are more sensitive to weak chromospheric activity. Mg II flux data are available from the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE). Thus, the main purpose of this study was to analyze the magnetic activity of stars. We used 343 high-resolution IUE spectra of 14 main-sequence G stars to obtain the Mg II continuum surface flux and Mg II line-core flux around 2,800 Å. We calculated S index using the IUE spectra and compared it with the conventional Mount Wilson S index. We found a color (B - V ) dependent association between the S index and the Mg II emission line-core flux. Furthermore, we attempted to obtain the magnetic activity cycles of these stars based on the new S index. Unfortunately, this was not successful because the IUE observation interval of approximately 17 years is too short to estimate the magnetic activity cycles of G-type stars, whose cycles may be longer than the 11 year mean activity cycle of the sun.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.38.2-38.2
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• 2012

We use two-dimensional high-resolution MHD simulations to investigate the effects of magnetic fields on the formation and evolution of such substructures as well as on the mass inflow rates to the galaxy center. We find that there exists an outermost x1-orbit relative to which gaseous responses to an imposed stellar bar potential are completely different between inside and outside. Inside this orbit, gas is shocked into dust lanes and infalls to form a nuclear ring. Magnetic fields are compressed in dust lanes, reducing their peak density. Magnetic stress removes further angular momentum of the gas at the shocks and leads to a smaller and more centrally distributed ring, resulting in the mass inflow rates larger, by more than two orders of magnitude, than in the unmagnetized counterparts. Outside the outermost x1-orbit, on the other hand, an MHD dynamo operates near the corotation and bar-end regions, efficiently amplifying magnetic fields. The amplified fields shape into trailing magnetic arms with strong fields and low density. The base of the magnetic arms have a thin layer in which magnetic fields with opposite polarity reconnect via a tearing-mode instability. This produces numerous magnetic islands with large density which propagate along the arms to turn the outer disk into a highly chaotic state.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.83.2-83.2
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• 2014

Flare and rotational variabilities induced by stellar activity are important for studying the effect of magnetic fields on the evolution of red dwarf stars. The level and frequency of magnetic activity in these stars have a different aspect at every moment of the observations due to the effect of age-rotation relation. The use of both tracers is thus essential to have a relatively homogeneous set of stellar activity data for statistical studies. The archival light curves and imaging data of the open cluster M37 taken by MMT 6.5m telescope were used for this work. In order to achieve much more accurate photometric precisions and also to make the most efficient use of the data, the entire imaging database were re-analyzed with our new time-series photometry technique and carefully calibration procedures. Based on the new light curves, we study, for the first time, a variety of aspects of those two variabilities in red dwarfs and their relation to magnetic activity. In this talk, we present all observational evidences that support the idea that the strength of magnetic activity is closely connected with the rotation rate of a star and its evolutionary status (age-activity-rotation paradigm). In conclusion, we suggest future directions to improve our understanding of stellar activity in cool stars with photometric time-series data.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.29 no.spc1
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• pp.201-204
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• 1996

Magnetic fields are thought to playa role in a wide variety of important astrophysical processes, from angular momentum transport and jet formation in accretion disks to corona formation in stars. Unfortunately, the dynamics of magnetic fields in astrophysical plasmas are extremely complicated, and the success of current theoretical models and computer simulations seems to be inversely correlated with the amount of observational detail available to us. Here I will discuss some of the more striking conflicts between numerical simulations and observations, and present an explanation for them based on an important dynamical process which is not adequately modeled in current numerical simulations. These processes will lead to the formation of flux tubes in stars and accretion disks, in accordance with observations. I will discuss some of the implications of flux tube formation for stellar and accretion disk dynamos.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.89-98
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• 1993

Magnetostatic models of starspots of late type main sequence stars$(G5V\~K5V)$ have been constructed to investigate their physical characteristics by using the similarity law suggested by Schluter and Temesvary(1958) and later employed by Deinzer(1965) and Yun(1968). The starspots are assumed to be single, circular and in horizontal magnetostatic equilibrium. In the present study we considered only those model spots whose area covers less than $12\%$ of the entire stellar surface as suggested by observations. The computed surface field strength of our model spots ranges from $10^3$\;to\;several\;10^3$ gauss and their magnetic flux is found to be $10\~100$ times that of sunspots. The field strength is sensitive to spectral type, which increases with later spectral type. In contrast to the field strength, the area of starspots depends strongly on the total magnetic flux. Finally, it is noted that the computed field strength of model spots belonging to $G0V\~G5V$ falls below the equipartition field strength at their parent stellar surface unless the coverage is less than $2\%$. This suggests that the observed spot on $G0V\~G5V$ stars is likely to be a group of small starspots.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.42.2-42.2
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• 2017

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a unique target to study the detail structures of molecular clouds and star-forming regions, due to its proximity and face-on orientation from us. Most part of the astrophysical subjects for the LMC have been investigated, but the magnetic field is still veiling despite its role in the evolution of the interstellar medium (ISM) and in the main force to influence the star formation process. Measuring polarization of the background stars behind interstellar medium allows us to describe the existence of magnetic fields through the polarization vector map. In this presentation, I introduce the near-infrared polarimetric results for the $39^{\prime}{\times}69^{\prime}$ field of the northeastern region of the LMC and the N159/N160 star-forming complex therein. The polarimetric observations were conducted at IRSF/SIRPOL 1.4 m telescope. These results allow us to examine both the global geometry of the large-scale magnetic field in the northeastern region and the close structure of the magnetic field in the complex. Prominent patterns of polarization vectors mainly follow dust emission features in the mid-infrared bands, which imply that the large-scale magnetic fields are highly involved in the structure of the dust cloud in the LMC. In addition, local magnetic field structures in the N159/N160 star-forming complex are investigated with the comparison between polarization vectors and molecular cloud emissions, suggesting that the magnetic fields are resulted from the sequential formation history of this complex. I propose that ionizing radiation from massive stellar clusters and the expanding bubble of the ionized gas and dust in this complex probably affect the nascent magnetic field structure.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.283-287
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• 2005

The slow evolution of global magnetic fields and other dynamical processes in atmospheres of CP magnetic stars lead to the development of induced electric currents in all conductive atmospheric layers. The Lorentz force, which results from the interaction between a magnetic field and the induced currents, may modify the atmospheric structure and provide insight into the formation and evolution of stellar magnetic fields. This modification of the pressure-temperature structure influences the formation of absorption spectral features producing characteristic rotational variability of some spectral lines, especially the Balmer lines (Valyavin et al., 2004 and references therein). In order to study these theoretical predictions we began systematic spectroscopic survey of Balmer line variability in spectra of brightest CP magnetic stars. Here we present the first results of the program. A0p star $\Theta$ Aur revealed significant variability of the Balmer profiles during the star's rotation. Character of this variablity corresponds to that classified by Kroll (1989) as a result of an impact of significant Lorentz force. From the obtained data we estimate that amplitudes of the variation at H$\alpha$, H$\beta$, H$\gamma$ and H$\delta$ profiles reach up to $2.4\%$during full rotation cycle of the star. Using computation of our model atmospheres (Valyavin et al., 2004) we interpret these data within the framework of the simplest model of the evolution of global magnetic fields in chemically peculiar stars. Assuming that the field is represented by a dipole, we estimate the characteristic e.m.f. induced by the field decay electric current (and the Lorentz force as the result) on the order of $E {\~} 10^{-11}$ cgs units, which may indicate very fast (< < $10^{10}$ years) evolution rate of the field. This result strongly contradicts the theoretical point of view that global stellar magnetic fields of CP stars are fossil and their the characteristic decay time of about $10^{10}$ yr. Alternatively, we briefly discuss concurring effects (like the ambipolar diffusion) which may also lead to significant atmospheric currents producing the observable Lorentz force.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.111-111
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• 2014

Intensity interferometry, based on the Hanbury Brown--Twiss effect, is a simple and inexpensive method for optical interferometry at microarcsecond angular resolutions. Motivated by recent technical developments, we argue that the sensitivity of large modern intensity interferometers can be improved by factors up to approximately 25,000, corresponding to 11 photometric magnitudes, compared to the pioneering Narrabri Stellar Interferometer of the 1970s when resolving. Our approach, based on spectrally resolved light, permits the construction of large optical interferometers at the cost of (very) long-baseline radio interferometers. Realistic intensity interferometers are able to spatially resolve main-sequence O-type stars in the Magellanic Clouds. Multi-channel intensity interferometers can address a wide variety of science cases: (i) linear radii, effective temperatures, and luminosities of stars; (ii) mass-radius relationships of compact stellar remnants; (iii) stellar rotation; (iv) stellar convection and the interaction of stellar photospheres and magnetic fields; (v) the structure and evolution of multiple stars; (vi) direct measurements of interstellar distances; (vii) the physics of gas accretion onto supermassive black holes; and (viii) calibration of amplitude interferometers by providing a sample of calibrator stars.