In this paper, we review the extended halo material and the circumgalactic medium (CGM), including both dust and gas, and discuss promising science cases that could be realized using the KASI Deep Rolling Imaging Fast Telescope (K-DRIFT). Scattered starlight from cirrus clouds in our Galaxy poses one of the major challenges to studying the low surface brightness features of extragalactic sources. Therefore, it is essential to investigate how to discriminate extragalactic sources from cirrus cloud features. At the same time, interstellar dust clouds themselves are fundamental to understanding dust properties and the interstellar radiation field, both of which are essential for studies of chemical evolution and star formation in our Galaxy. Measuring the reddening of background sources, such as quasars, with K-DRIFT, which benefits from its broad field of view and accurate background subtraction, allows for the effective detection of extended dust in galactic halos, the CGM, and intracluster space. Observations of the Hα emission lines can be used to identify signatures of star formation activity within galaxies, as well as the environmental effects acting on them. Galactic winds driven by active galactic nuclei and starbursts can be traced through Hα emission. Strong ram pressure stripping effectively removes the interstellar medium (ISM) from galaxies. The stripped ISM becomes ionized or dissociated through mixing with the hot intracluster medium (ICM), forming Hα tails. The surface brightness of these Hα tails correlates not only with the presence of star formation in the tails but also the mixing stage of the stripped ISM and ICM. The Hα survey with K-DRIFT will enable the investigation of the evolutionary stages of ram pressure stripped galaxies in cluster environments, as well as the multiphase gas reservoir around galaxies and in the CGM.

We investigate the evolution of initial fractal clusters at 3 kpc from the Galactic Center (GC) of the MilkyWay and show how red supergiant clusters (RSGCs)-like objects, which are considered to be the result of active star formation in the Scutum complex, can form by 16 Myr. We find that initial tidal filling and tidal over-filling fractals are shredded by the tidal force, but some substructures can survive as individual subclusters, especially when the initial virial ratio is ≤0.5. These surviving subclusters are weakly mass segregated and show a top-heavy mass function. This implies the possibility that a single substructured star cluster can evolve into multiple ‘star clusters’.

We report the result of a high-resolution spectroscopic study on seven magnesium (Mg) enhanced stars. The high Mg abundances in these stars imply that they were born in an environment heavily affected by the nucleosynthesis products of massive stars. We measure abundances of 16 elements including Mg and they show various abundance patterns implying their diverse origin. Three of our program stars show a very high Mg to Si ratio ([Mg/Si] ≈ 0.18–0.25), which might be well explained by fall-back supernovae or by supernovae with rapid rotating progenitors having an initial mass higher than about 20 𝑀⊙. Another three of our program stars have high light to heavy s-process element ratios ([Y/Ba] ≈ 0.30–0.44), which are consistent with the theoretical prediction of the nucleosynthesis in rapidly rotating massive stars with an initial mass of about 𝑀 = 40 𝑀⊙. We also report a star having both high Y ([Y/Fe] = 0.2) and Ba ([Ba/Fe] = 0.28) abundance ratios, and it also shows the highest Zn abundance ratio ([Zn/Fe] = 0.27) among our sample, implying the nucleosynthesis by asymmetric supernova explosion induced by very rapid rotation of a massive progenitor having an initial mass between 20 𝑀⊙ ≲ 𝑀 ≲ 40 𝑀⊙. A relative deficiency of odd-number elements, which would be a signature of the pair-instability nucleosynthesis, is not found in our sample.