Influence of Gaia Celestial Reference Frame on VLBI estimated Quasars Positions and Celestial Pole Offset
I. Nurul Huda^{1,2*}, J.-C. Liu^1, N. Liu^1, and J. Yao^1

1. School of Astronomy and Space Science, Key Laboratory of Modern Astronomy and Astrophysics (Ministry of Education), Nanjing University, Nanjing, People^s Republic of China

2. Research Center for Computing, National Research and Innovation Agency, Bandung, Indonesia

Email: ibnu.nurul.huda[at]nju.edu.cn

Abstract

Celestial Reference Frame is one of the important aspects on Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) data analysis. Conventionally, International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF), which is now ICRF3, have been adopted to define apriori on quasar positions on VLBI data processing. Recently, satellite Gaia has produced their own CRF called Gaia CRF (Gaia-CRF), with Gaia-CRF3 as its new version. This another type of CRF has the same level of accuracy with its radio counterpart and it has also much dense quasars. ICRF3 has a deficiency on the quality of the observed quasars positions, notably in the southern hemisphere, which is due to unequal distribution of the observed VLBI antennas. This is not the case of Gaia-CRF3. In this study, we have adopted Gaia-CRF3 as the reference frame on VLBI data analysis. The results of this kind of configuration to the VLBI products will be presented.

Keywords: Celestial Reference Frame, VLBI, Astrometry

Topic: Galaxies and Cosmology