Description
While analyzing decades of very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) data, we detected the secular aberration drift of the extragalactic radio source proper motions caused by the rotation of the Solar System barycenter around the Galactic center. Our results agree with the predicted estimate to be 4-6 micro arcseconds per year (uas/yr) towards RA=266{deg} and DE=-29{deg}. In addition, we tried to detect the quadrupole systematics of the velocity field. The analysis method consisted of three steps. First, we analyzed geodetic and astrometric VLBI data to produce radio source coordinate time series. Second, we fitted proper motions of 555 sources with long observational histories over the period 1990-2010 to their respective coordinate time series. Finally, we fitted vector spherical harmonic components of degrees 1 and 2 to the proper motion field.
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