• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.117-122
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• 2012

The interstellar dust grains are formed and supplied to interstellar space from asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars or supernova remnants, and become constituents of the star- and planet-formation processes that lead to the next generation of stars. Both a qualitative, and a compositional study of this cycle are essential to understanding the origin of the pre-solar grains, the missing sources of the interstellar material, and the chemical evolution of our Galaxy. The AKARI/MIR all-sky survey was performed with two mid-infrared photometric bands centered at 9 and $18{\mu}m$. These data have advantages in detecting carbonaceous and silicate circumstellar dust of AGB stars, and the interstellar polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons separately from large grains of amorphous silicate. By using the AKARI/MIR All-Sky point source catalogue, we surveyed C-rich and O-rich AGB stars in our Galaxy, which are the dominant suppliers of carbonaceous and silicate grains, respectively. The C-rich stars are uniformly distributed across the Galactic disk, whereas O-rich stars are concentrated toward the Galactic center, following the metallicity gradient of the interstellar medium, and are presumably affected by the environment of their birth place. We will compare the distributions of the dust suppliers with the distributions of the interstellar grains themselves by using the AKARI/MIR All-Sky diffuse maps. To enable discussions on the faint diffuse interstellar radiation, we are developing an accurate AKARI/MIR All-Sky diffuse map by correcting artifacts such as the ionising radiation effects, scattered light from the moon, and stray light from bright sources.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.42.1-42.1
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• 2013

GRB 100205A is a Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) which is suspected to be at $11{\leq}Z{\leq}13.5$ due to its very red H-K color ($(H-K)_{vega}=2.1{\pm}0.5$). We observed a field centered at GRB 100205A with the Wide Field Camera (WFCAM) at the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii, so as to find a 11 < z < 13 quasar that could be located around the GRB. The images were obtained in J, H, and K filters covering a square area of 0.75 $deg^2$ to the depths of 22.5, 21.4, and 20.2 in Vega magnitude at $5{\sigma}$, respectively. Also using a z-band image observed by MegaCam in Canada France Hawaii Telescope (CFHT), we found 12 candidates that have colors consistent with a quasar at 11 < z < 13 with two criteria; (1) non-detection in z-, J-bands and $(H-K)_{vega}$ > 1.6 (2) only detection in K-band with $(Hlimit-K)_{vega}$ > 1.6. However, we also find 627 red ($(H-K)_{vega}$ > 1.4) objects that are likely to be old or dusty galaxies at $z{\leq}3$, so the 12 candidates could be these red objects. These red objects are found to be strongly clustered in the Ultra Deep Survey (UDS) fields of UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) than those in the GRB 100205A field. We suggest a lack of a strongly clustered region surrounding an extremely high-redshift GRB with some limitations.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.38.2-38.2
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• 2016

How dense cores and filaments in molecular clouds form is one of key questions in star formation. To challenge this issue we started to make a systematic mapping survey of nearby molecular clouds in various environments with TRAO 14m telescope equipped with 16 beam array, in high ($N_2H^+$, $HCO^+$ 1-0) and low ($C^{18}O$, $^{13}CO$ 1-0) density tracers (TRAO Multi-beam Legacy Survey of Nearby Filamentary Molecular Clouds, PI: C. W. Lee). We pursue to dynamically and chemically understand how filaments, dense cores, and stars form under different environments. We have performed On-The-Fly (OTF) mapping observations toward L1251, southern part of Perseus molecular cloud, and Serpens main molecular cloud from January to May, 2016. In total, ~3.5 square degree area map of $^{13}CO$ and $C^{18}O$ was simultaneously obtained with S/N of >10 in a velocity resolution of ~0.2 km/s. Dense core regions of ~1.7 square degree area where $C^{18}O$ 1-0 line is strongly detected were also mapped in $N_2H^+$ 1-0 and $HCO^+$ 1-0. The L1251 and Perseus MC are known to be low- to intermediate-mass star-forming clouds, while the Serpens MC is an active low-mass star-forming cloud. The observed molecular filaments will help to understand how the filaments, cores and eventually stars form in a low- and/or intermediate-mass star-forming environment. In this talk, I'll give a brief report on the observation and show preliminary results of Perseus MC.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.48 no.1
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• pp.83-92
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• 2015

Recent large scale surveys such as Sloan Digital Sky Survey have produced homogeneous samples of multiple-image gravitationally lensed quasars with well-defined selection effects. Statistical analysis on these can yield independent constraints on cosmological parameters. Here we use the image separation statistics of lensed quasars from Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Lens Search (SQLS) to derive constraints on cosmological parameters. Our analysis does not require knowledge of the magnification bias, which can only be estimated from the detailed knowledge on the quasar luminosity function at all redshifts, and includes the consideration for the bias against small image separation quasars due to selection against faint lens galaxy in the follow-up observations for confirmation. We first use the mean image separation of the lensed quasars as a function of redshift to find that cosmological models with extreme curvature are inconsistent with observed lensed quasars. We then apply the maximum likelihood test to the statistical sample of 16 lensed quasars that have both measured redshift and magnitude of lens galaxy. The likelihood incorporates the probability that the observed image separation is realized given the luminosity of the lens galaxy in the same manner as Im et al. (1997). We find that the 95% confidence range for the cosmological constant (i.e., the vacuum energy density) is $0.72{\leq}{\Omega}_{\Lambda}{\leq}1.0$ for a flat universe. We also find that the equation of state parameter can be consistent with -1 as long as the matter density ${\Omega}_m{\leq}0.4$ (95% confidence range). We conclude that the image separation statistics incorporating the brightness of lens galaxies can provide robust constraints on the cosmological parameters.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.83.2-83.2
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• 2012

We have carried out simultaneous 22GHz $H_2O$ and 44GHz Class I $CH_3OH$ maser survey of 112 ultra-compact HII regions (UCHIIs) twice in 2010 and 2011. We detected $H_2O$ maser and $CH_3OH$ maser emission from 76(68%) and 49(44%) UCHIIs, respectively. Among them 15 $H_2O$ masers and 32 $CH_3OH$ masers are new detections. These high detection rates suggest that the occurrence periods of both masers are significantly overlapped with the UCHII phase. $CH_3OH$ masers always have small (<10 km s-1) relative velocities with respect to the natal molecular cores, while $H_2O$ masers often show larger velocities. We find 20 UCHIIs with $H_2O$ maser lines at relative velocities >30 km s-1. The formation and disappearance of $H_2O$ masers is frequent over one-year time interval. In contrast, $CH_3OH$ masers usually do not show substantial variation in intensity, velocity, or shape. The isotropic luminosities of both masers well correlate with the bolometric luminosities of the central stars when data points of lowand intermediate-mass protostars are added: $L_{H_2O}=5.89{\times}10^{-9}{(L_{bol})^{0.69}}$ and $L_{CH_3OH}=4.27{\times}10^{-9}{(L_{bol})^{0.62}}$. They also tend to increase with the 2cm radio continuum luminosity of UCHIIs and the 850 um continuum luminosity of the associated molecular cores. We discuss some individual sources.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.72.3-72.3
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• 2015

We present the mid-infrared (MIR) luminosity function (LF) of local (z < 0.3) star forming (SF) galaxies based on the AKARI's NEP-Wide Survey data. We utilized a combination of the NEP-Wide point source catalogue containing a large number (114,000) of infrared (IR) sources distributed over the wide (5.4 sq. deg) field and spectroscopic redshift (z) data for 1790 selected targets obtained by optical follow-up surveys with MMT/Hectospec and WIYN/Hydra. The AKARI's continuous $2{\sim}24{\mu}m$ wavelength coverage and the spectroscopic redshifts for sample galaxies enable us to derive accurate spectral energy distributions (SEDs) in the mid-infrared. We carried out SED-fit analysis and employed 1/Vmax method to derive the mid-IR (e.g., $8{\mu}m$, $12{\mu}m$, and $15{\mu}m$ rest-frame) luminosity functions. Our results for local galaxies from the NEP region generally consistent with various previous works for other fields over wide luminosity ranges. The comparison with the results of the NEP-Deep data implies the luminosity evolution from higher redshifts towards the present epoch. We attempted to fit our derived LFs to the double power-laws and present the resulting power indices. We also examined the correlation between mid-IR luminosity and total IR luminosity.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.1
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• pp.21-31
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• 2003

ASTRO-F /FIS will carry out all sky survey in the wavelength from 50 to 200 ${\mu}m$. At far infrared, stars and galaxies may not be good calibration sources because the IR fluxes could be sensitive to the dust shell of stars and star formation activities of galaxies. On the other hand, asteroids could be good calibration sources at far infrared because of rather simple spectral energy distribution. Recent progresses in thermal models for asteroids enable us to calculate the far infrared flux fairly accurately. We have derived the Bond albedos and diameters for 559 asteroids based on the IRAS and ground based optical data. Using these thermal parameters and standard thermal model, we have calculated the spectral energy distributions of asteroids from 10 to 200 ${\mu}m$. We have found that more than $70\%$ of our sample asteroids have flux errors less than $10\%$ within the context of the best fitting thermal models. In order to assess flux uncertainties due to model parameters, we have computed SEDs by varing external parameters such as emissivity, beaming parameter and phase integral. We have found that about 100 asteroids can be modeled to be better than $5.8\%$ of flux uncertainties. The systematic effects due to uncertainties in phase integral are not so important.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.28.2-28.2
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• 2015

High redshift quasars (z > 5) hold keys to understanding the evolution of the universe in its early stage. Yet, the number of high redshift quasars uncovered from previous studies is relatively small (70 or so), and are concentrated mostly in a limited redshift range (z ~ 6). To understand the early mass growth of supermassive black holes and the final stage of the cosmic reionization, it is important to find a statistically meaningful sample of quasars with various physical properties. Here we present a survey for high redshift quasars at 5 < z < 7. Through color selection techniques using multi-wavelength data, we found quasar candidates and carried out imaging follow-up observations to reduce contaminants. After optical spectroscopy, we discovered eight new quasars. We obtained near-infrared spectra for 3 of these 8 quasars, measured their physical properties such as black hole masses and Eddington ratios, and found that the high redshift quasars we discovered are growing via accretion more vigorous than those of their lower redshift counterparts. We estimated the quasar number densities from our discoveries and compared them to those expected from the quasar luminosity functions in literature. In contrast to the observed number density of quasars at z ~ 5, which agrees with literature, the observed number density at z ~ 7 shows values lower than what is expected, even after considering an extrapolated number density evolution. We conclude that the quasar number density at z ~ 7 declines toward higher redshift, more steeply than the empirically expected evolution.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.31.2-31.2
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• 2015

We present a near-infrared photometric and polarimetric catalog of sources in the $39^{\prime}{\times}69^{\prime}$ fields on the northeastern part of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), which was observed using SIRPOL, an imaging polarimeter of the Infrared Survey Facility (IRSF). This catalog contains 1,858 sources brighter than 14 mag at H band with polarization signal-to-noise ratio greater than 3 in at least one of J, H, and Ks bands. We examined the polarization structures around the star-forming regions, where coherent polarization position angle distributions are seen. We also estimated magnetic field strengths in some selected fields using Chandrasekhar and Fermi analysis. The magnetic field strengths are estimated to be $3{\sim}25{\mu}G$. The wavelength dependence of polarization degrees indicates that the polarization is most likely to be originated from dichroic extinctions by the local interstellar dusts in the LMC. We found that the polarization patterns are well aligned along the molecular clouds around star-forming regions.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.38 no.2
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• pp.72.2-72.2
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• 2013

We present a UBVI and $H{\alpha}$ photometric study of the young open cluster NGC 1893 in the outer Galaxy as part of "Sejong Open cluster Survey (SOS)" project. Using the properties of early-type stars in the photometric diagrams 65 early-type members were selected. More than 120 $H{\alpha}$ emission stars and candidates were found by $H{\alpha}$ photometry. Together with the published young stellar object catalogue and X-ray source list for this cluster, a total of 837 pre-main sequence (PMS) stars were identified in our photometric data. We obtained the mean reddening of < E(B-V) > = $0.56{\pm}0.08$ mag from the (U-B, B-V) diagram and confirmed the normal reddening law ($R_V=3.1$) toward NGC 1893 based on color excess ratios from optical to mid-infrared wavelengths. The zero-age main sequence fitting to the reddening-corrected color-magnitude diagrams gives a distance modulus of $V_0-M_V=12.8{\pm}0.1$. The age of the cluster inferred from stellar evolution models is about 1-2 Myr. We also found the Salpeter/Kroupa type initial mass function for this cluster. Finally, the mass accretion rate of 80 PMS stars with UV excess emission was estimated for the stars with masses from $0.6M_{\odot}$ to $5M_{\odot}$.