The impact of new estimates of models of stellar motion from VLBI on the alignment of the optically bright Gaia frame to ICRF3

Susanne Lunz; James M. Anderson; Ming H. Xu; Robert Heinkelmann; Oleg Titov; Jean François Lestrade; Megan C. Johnson; Fengchun Shu; Wen Chen; Alexey Melnikov; Jamie McCallum; Yulia Lopez; Andrei Mikhailov; Pablo de Vicente Abad; Harald Schuh

The impact of new estimates of models of stellar motion from VLBI on the alignment of the optically bright Gaia frame to ICRF3

Susanne Lunz^*
, James M. Anderson
, Ming H. Xu
, Robert Heinkelmann
, Oleg Titov
, Jean François Lestrade
, Megan C. Johnson
, Fengchun Shu
, Wen Chen
, Alexey Melnikov
, Jamie McCallum
, Yulia Lopez
, Andrei Mikhailov
, Pablo de Vicente Abad
, Harald Schuh

^*Corresponding author for this work

Technical University of Berlin
Helmholtz Centre Potsdam - German Research Centre for Geosciences
Observatoire de Paris
CAS - Shanghai Astronomical Observatory
University of Tasmania
Observatorio de Yebes
Geoscience Australia
U.S. Naval Observatory
Yunnan Observatories

Research output: Contribution to journal › Conference article › Scientific › peer-review

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Abstract

The reference frame determined by Gaia EDR3, Gaia-CRF3, is aligned to the International Celestial Reference System by referring to counterparts in its latest realization, the third International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF3), which is calculated from very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations of extragalactic objects at radio frequencies. The objects in ICRF3, although bright at radio frequencies, are mostly faint at optical frequencies. The non-rotation of the optically bright Gaia frame to ICRF3 has to be tested separately because the Gaia dataset is known to be magnitude-dependent in terms of astrometric calibration. This can be done by identifying additional counterparts besides objects in ICRF3. Suitable counterparts are radio stars observed by VLBI relative to extragalactic objects in ICRF3 using phase-referencing. We discuss the rotational differences, i.e., orientation and spin, between the optically bright Gaia EDR3 and models of stellar motion from VLBI. In particular, we show the effects of improved models of stellar motion, for which we extended the time series from literature or archives with new VLBI results.

Original language	English
Article number	032
Journal	POS Proceedings of Science
Volume	399
Publication status	Published - 2021
MoE publication type	A4 Conference publication
Event	European VLBI Network Symposium and Users Meeting - Virtual, Online Duration: 12 Jul 2021 → 14 Jul 2021

Funding

The authors acknowledge use of the Very Long Baseline Array under the US Naval Observatory's time allocation. This work supports USNO's ongoing research into the celestial reference frame and geodesy. We thank also the Socorro correlator for reliably and quickly providing the correlated data. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. This project is supported by the DFG grants No. SCHU 1103/7-2, No. HE 5937/2-2, and SCHU 1103/26-1. M. H. Xu was supported by the Academy of Finland project No. 315721. This work has made use of the data from the European Space Agency mission Gaia processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium. Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement. The authors acknowledge use of the Very Long Baseline Array under the US Naval Observatory’s time allocation. This work supports USNO’s ongoing research into the celestial reference frame and geodesy. We thank also the Socorro correlator for reliably and quickly providing the correlated data. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. This project is supported by the DFG grants No. SCHU 1103/7-2, No. HE 5937/2-2, and SCHU 1103/26-1. M. H. Xu was supported by the Academy of Finland project No. 315721. This work has made use of the data from the European Space Agency mission Gaia processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium. Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement.

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Lunz, S., Anderson, J. M., Xu, M. H., Heinkelmann, R., Titov, O., Lestrade, J. F., Johnson, M. C., Shu, F., Chen, W., Melnikov, A., McCallum, J., Lopez, Y., Mikhailov, A., de Vicente Abad, P., & Schuh, H. (2021). The impact of new estimates of models of stellar motion from VLBI on the alignment of the optically bright Gaia frame to ICRF3. POS Proceedings of Science, 399, Article 032. https://pos.sissa.it/399/032/pdf

@article{22ce8004006c44089b9b65de3ce118f7,

title = "The impact of new estimates of models of stellar motion from VLBI on the alignment of the optically bright Gaia frame to ICRF3",

abstract = "The reference frame determined by Gaia EDR3, Gaia-CRF3, is aligned to the International Celestial Reference System by referring to counterparts in its latest realization, the third International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF3), which is calculated from very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations of extragalactic objects at radio frequencies. The objects in ICRF3, although bright at radio frequencies, are mostly faint at optical frequencies. The non-rotation of the optically bright Gaia frame to ICRF3 has to be tested separately because the Gaia dataset is known to be magnitude-dependent in terms of astrometric calibration. This can be done by identifying additional counterparts besides objects in ICRF3. Suitable counterparts are radio stars observed by VLBI relative to extragalactic objects in ICRF3 using phase-referencing. We discuss the rotational differences, i.e., orientation and spin, between the optically bright Gaia EDR3 and models of stellar motion from VLBI. In particular, we show the effects of improved models of stellar motion, for which we extended the time series from literature or archives with new VLBI results.",

author = "Susanne Lunz and Anderson, \{James M.\} and Xu, \{Ming H.\} and Robert Heinkelmann and Oleg Titov and Lestrade, \{Jean Fran{\c c}ois\} and Johnson, \{Megan C.\} and Fengchun Shu and Wen Chen and Alexey Melnikov and Jamie McCallum and Yulia Lopez and Andrei Mikhailov and \{de Vicente Abad\}, Pablo and Harald Schuh",

note = "Funding Information: The authors acknowledge use of the Very Long Baseline Array under the US Naval Observatory's time allocation. This work supports USNO's ongoing research into the celestial reference frame and geodesy. We thank also the Socorro correlator for reliably and quickly providing the correlated data. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. This project is supported by the DFG grants No. SCHU 1103/7-2, No. HE 5937/2-2, and SCHU 1103/26-1. M. H. Xu was supported by the Academy of Finland project No. 315721. This work has made use of the data from the European Space Agency mission Gaia processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium. Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement. Funding Information: The authors acknowledge use of the Very Long Baseline Array under the US Naval Observatory{\textquoteright}s time allocation. This work supports USNO{\textquoteright}s ongoing research into the celestial reference frame and geodesy. We thank also the Socorro correlator for reliably and quickly providing the correlated data. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. This project is supported by the DFG grants No. SCHU 1103/7-2, No. HE 5937/2-2, and SCHU 1103/26-1. M. H. Xu was supported by the Academy of Finland project No. 315721. This work has made use of the data from the European Space Agency mission Gaia processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium. Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} Copyright owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).; European VLBI Network Symposium and Users Meeting, EVN ; Conference date: 12-07-2021 Through 14-07-2021",

year = "2021",

language = "English",

volume = "399",

journal = "POS Proceedings of Science",

issn = "1824-8039",

publisher = "Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA)",

}

Lunz, S, Anderson, JM, Xu, MH, Heinkelmann, R, Titov, O, Lestrade, JF, Johnson, MC, Shu, F, Chen, W, Melnikov, A, McCallum, J, Lopez, Y, Mikhailov, A, de Vicente Abad, P & Schuh, H 2021, 'The impact of new estimates of models of stellar motion from VLBI on the alignment of the optically bright Gaia frame to ICRF3', POS Proceedings of Science, vol. 399, 032. <https://pos.sissa.it/399/032/pdf>

TY - JOUR

T1 - The impact of new estimates of models of stellar motion from VLBI on the alignment of the optically bright Gaia frame to ICRF3

AU - Lunz, Susanne

AU - Anderson, James M.

AU - Xu, Ming H.

AU - Heinkelmann, Robert

AU - Titov, Oleg

AU - Lestrade, Jean François

AU - Johnson, Megan C.

AU - Shu, Fengchun

AU - Chen, Wen

AU - Melnikov, Alexey

AU - McCallum, Jamie

AU - Lopez, Yulia

AU - Mikhailov, Andrei

AU - de Vicente Abad, Pablo

AU - Schuh, Harald

N1 - Funding Information: The authors acknowledge use of the Very Long Baseline Array under the US Naval Observatory's time allocation. This work supports USNO's ongoing research into the celestial reference frame and geodesy. We thank also the Socorro correlator for reliably and quickly providing the correlated data. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. This project is supported by the DFG grants No. SCHU 1103/7-2, No. HE 5937/2-2, and SCHU 1103/26-1. M. H. Xu was supported by the Academy of Finland project No. 315721. This work has made use of the data from the European Space Agency mission Gaia processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium. Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement. Funding Information: The authors acknowledge use of the Very Long Baseline Array under the US Naval Observatory’s time allocation. This work supports USNO’s ongoing research into the celestial reference frame and geodesy. We thank also the Socorro correlator for reliably and quickly providing the correlated data. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. This project is supported by the DFG grants No. SCHU 1103/7-2, No. HE 5937/2-2, and SCHU 1103/26-1. M. H. Xu was supported by the Academy of Finland project No. 315721. This work has made use of the data from the European Space Agency mission Gaia processed by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium. Funding for the DPAC has been provided by national institutions, in particular the institutions participating in the Gaia Multilateral Agreement. Publisher Copyright: © Copyright owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - The reference frame determined by Gaia EDR3, Gaia-CRF3, is aligned to the International Celestial Reference System by referring to counterparts in its latest realization, the third International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF3), which is calculated from very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations of extragalactic objects at radio frequencies. The objects in ICRF3, although bright at radio frequencies, are mostly faint at optical frequencies. The non-rotation of the optically bright Gaia frame to ICRF3 has to be tested separately because the Gaia dataset is known to be magnitude-dependent in terms of astrometric calibration. This can be done by identifying additional counterparts besides objects in ICRF3. Suitable counterparts are radio stars observed by VLBI relative to extragalactic objects in ICRF3 using phase-referencing. We discuss the rotational differences, i.e., orientation and spin, between the optically bright Gaia EDR3 and models of stellar motion from VLBI. In particular, we show the effects of improved models of stellar motion, for which we extended the time series from literature or archives with new VLBI results.

AB - The reference frame determined by Gaia EDR3, Gaia-CRF3, is aligned to the International Celestial Reference System by referring to counterparts in its latest realization, the third International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF3), which is calculated from very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations of extragalactic objects at radio frequencies. The objects in ICRF3, although bright at radio frequencies, are mostly faint at optical frequencies. The non-rotation of the optically bright Gaia frame to ICRF3 has to be tested separately because the Gaia dataset is known to be magnitude-dependent in terms of astrometric calibration. This can be done by identifying additional counterparts besides objects in ICRF3. Suitable counterparts are radio stars observed by VLBI relative to extragalactic objects in ICRF3 using phase-referencing. We discuss the rotational differences, i.e., orientation and spin, between the optically bright Gaia EDR3 and models of stellar motion from VLBI. In particular, we show the effects of improved models of stellar motion, for which we extended the time series from literature or archives with new VLBI results.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85129775746

M3 - Conference article

AN - SCOPUS:85129775746

SN - 1824-8039

VL - 399

JO - POS Proceedings of Science

JF - POS Proceedings of Science

M1 - 032

T2 - European VLBI Network Symposium and Users Meeting

Y2 - 12 July 2021 through 14 July 2021

ER -

The impact of new estimates of models of stellar motion from VLBI on the alignment of the optically bright Gaia frame to ICRF3

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The impact of new estimates of models of stellar motion from VLBI on the alignment of the optically bright Gaia frame to ICRF3

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NT-VGOS: From quasars to geodesy: how astronomy can enable a new era in ultra-precise geodetic measurements

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