- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/121/1192
- Title:
- Proper-motion measurements with the VLA
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/121/1192
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The pulsar velocity distribution provides information about the binary history of pulsar progenitors, as well as the asymmetries of the supernova events in which pulsars are born. Studies of local pulsars present a biased view of this distribution, because they preferentially select low-velocity pulsars that have remained near their birthplaces in the Galactic plane. Using the VLA, we have studied the proper motions of a large sample of distant pulsars. These pulsars are generally faint, and the expected proper motions are small. In this paper, we describe the data analysis techniques that we have developed to allow precise astrometric measurements of faint sources with the VLA. These techniques include "gating" the VLA correlator to increase the signal-to-noise ratio of the pulsar by gathering data only during the pulse. Wide-field imaging techniques, including multiband imaging to account for bandwidth smearing, were used to allow identification of multiple in-beam background sources for astrometric calibration. We present the analysis of three pulsars and demonstrate that astrometric accuracy of about 10 mas can be obtained for individual sources with our technique, allowing measurement of proper motions with errors of only a few milliarcseconds per year over our 7 year baseline.
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Search Results
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/529/A91
- Title:
- Proper motions of 555 quasars from VLBI
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/529/A91
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- 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.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJS/176/276
- Title:
- PTI calibrator catalog
- Short Name:
- J/ApJS/176/276
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The Palomar Testbed Interferometer (PTI) archive of observations between 1998 and 2005 is examined for objects appropriate for calibration of optical long-baseline interferometer observations - stars that are predictably pointlike and single. Approximately 1400 nights of data on 1800 objects were examined for this investigation. We compare those observations to an intensively studied object that is a suitable calibrator, HD 217014, and statistically compare each candidate calibrator to that object by computing both a Mahalanobis distance and a principal component analysis. Our hypothesis is that the frequency distribution of visibility data associated with calibrator stars differs from noncalibrator stars such as binary stars. Spectroscopic binaries resolved by PTI, objects known to be unsuitable for calibrator use, are similarly tested to establish detection limits of this approach. From this investigation, we find more than 350 observed stars suitable for use as calibrators (with an additional ~140 being rejected), corresponding to >~95% sky coverage for PTI.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/775/45
- Title:
- PTI carbon star angular size survey
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/775/45
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We report new interferometric angular diameter observations of 41 carbon stars observed with the Palomar Testbed Interferometer. Two of these stars are CH carbon stars and represent the first such measurements of this subtype. Of these, 39 have Yamashita spectral classes and are of sufficiently high quality that we can determine the dependence of effective temperature on spectral type. We find that there is a tendency for the effective temperature to increase with increasing temperature index by ~120K per step, starting at T_eff_=~2500K for C3, y, although there is a large amount of scatter in this relationship. Overall, the median effective temperature of the carbon star sample is 2800+/-270 K and the median linear radius is 360+/-100R_{sun}_. We also find agreement, on average within 15K, with the T_eff_ determinations of Bergeat et al. (J/A+A/369/178) and a refinement of the carbon star angular size prediction based on V & K magnitudes is presented that is good to an rms of 12%. A subsample of our stars have sufficient {u, v} coverage to permit non-spherical modeling of their photospheres, and a general tendency for detection of statistically significant departures from sphericity with increasing interferometric signal-to-noise is seen. The implications of most -and potentially all- carbon stars being non-spherical is considered in the context of surface inhomogeneities and a rotation-mass-loss connection.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/144/150
- Title:
- QCAL-1 43 GHz Calibrator Survey
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/144/150
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- This paper presents the catalog of correlated flux densities in three ranges of baseline projection lengths of 637 sources from a 43GHz (Q band) survey observed with the Korean VLBI Network. Of them, 14 objects used as calibrators were previously observed, but 623 sources have not been observed before in the Q band with very long baseline interferometry (VLBI). The goal of this work in the early science phase of the new VLBI array is twofold: to evaluate the performance of the new instrument that operates in a frequency range of 22-129GHz and to build a list of objects that can be used as targets and as calibrators. We have observed the list of 799 target sources with declinations down to -40{deg}. Among them, 724 were observed before with VLBI at 22GHz and had correlated flux densities greater than 200mJy. The overall detection rate is 78%. The detection limit, defined as the minimum flux density for a source to be detected with 90% probability in a single observation, was in the range of 115-180mJy depending on declination. However, some sources as weak as 70mJy have been detected. Of 623 detected sources, 33 objects are detected for the first time in VLBI mode. We determined their coordinates with a median formal uncertainty of 20mas. The results of this work set the basis for future efforts to build the complete flux-limited sample of extragalactic sources at frequencies of 22GHz and higher at 3/4 of the celestial sphere.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/858/90
- Title:
- Radial profiles of 5 nearby galaxies
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/858/90
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We use new ALMA observations to investigate the connection between dense gas fraction, star formation rate (SFR), and local environment across the inner region of four local galaxies showing a wide range of molecular gas depletion times. We map HCN(1-0), HCO^+^(1-0), CS(2-1), ^13^CO(1-0), and C^18^O(1-0) across the inner few kiloparsecs of each target. We combine these data with short-spacing information from the IRAM large program EMPIRE, archival CO maps, tracers of stellar structure and recent star formation, and recent HCN surveys by Bigiel+ (2016ApJ...822L..26B) and Usero+ (2015AJ....150..115U). We test the degree to which changes in the dense gas fraction drive changes in the SFR. I_HCN_/I_CO_ (tracing the dense gas fraction) correlates strongly with I_CO_ (tracing molecular gas surface density), stellar surface density, and dynamical equilibrium pressure, P_DE_ (Elmegreen 1989ApJ...338..178E). Therefore, I_HCN_/I_CO_ becomes very low and HCN becomes very faint at large galactocentric radii, where ratios as low as I_HCN_/I_CO_~0.01 become common. The apparent ability of dense gas to form stars, {Sigma}_SFR_/{Sigma}_dense_ (where {Sigma}_dense_ is traced by the HCN intensity and the star formation rate is traced by a combination of H{alpha} and 24{mu}m emission), also depends on environment. {Sigma}_SFR_/{Sigma}_dense_ decreases in regions of high gas surface density, high stellar surface density, and high P_DE_. Statistically, these correlations between environment and both {Sigma}_SFR_/{Sigma}_dense_ and I_HCN_/I_CO_ are stronger than that between apparent dense gas fraction (I_HCN_/I_CO_) and the apparent molecular gas star formation efficiency {Sigma}_SFR_/{Sigma}_mol_. We show that these results are not specific to HCN.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/694/1085
- Title:
- Radii of exoplanet host stars
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/694/1085
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present interferometric angular sizes for 12 stars with known planetary companions, for comparison with 28 additional main-sequence stars not known to host planets. For all objects we estimate bolometric fluxes and reddenings through spectral-energy distribution (SED) fits, and in conjunction with the angular sizes, measurements of effective temperature. The angular sizes of these stars are sufficiently small that the fundamental resolution limits of our primary instrument, the Palomar Testbed Interferometer, are investigated at the sub-milliarcsecond level and empirically established based upon known performance limits. We demonstrate that the effective temperature scale as a function of dereddened (V-K)0 color is statistically identical for stars with and without planets. Additionally, in an Appendix we provide SED fits for the 166 stars with known planets which have sufficient photometry available in the literature for such fits; this derived "XO-Rad" database includes homogeneous estimates of bolometric flux, reddening, and angular size.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/151/79
- Title:
- Radio fluxes of 195 ICRF2-Gaia transfer sources
- Short Name:
- J/AJ/151/79
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The second realization of the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF2), which is the current fundamental celestial reference frame adopted by the International Astronomical Union, is based on Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) data at radio frequencies in X band and S band. The European Space Agency's Gaia mission, launched on 2013 December 19, started routine scientific operations in 2014 July. By scanning the whole sky, it is expected to observe ~500000 Quasi Stellar Objects in the optical domain an average of 70 times each during the five years of the mission. This means that, in the future, two extragalactic celestial reference frames, at two different frequency domains, will coexist. It will thus be important to align them very accurately. In 2012, the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Bordeaux (LAB) selected 195 sources from ICRF2 that will be observed by Gaia and should be suitable for aligning the radio and optical frames: they are called ICRF2-Gaia transfer sources. The LAB submitted a proposal to the International VLBI Service (IVS) to regularly observe these ICRF2-Gaia transfer sources at the same rate as Gaia observes them in the optical realm, e.g., roughly once a month. We describe our successful effort to implement such a program and report on the results. Most observations of the ICRF2-Gaia transfer sources now occur automatically as part of the IVS source monitoring program, while a subset of 37 sources requires special attention. Beginning in 2013, we scheduled 25 VLBI sessions devoted in whole or in part to measuring these 37 sources. Of the 195 sources, all but one have been successfully observed in the 12 months prior to 2015 September 01. Of the sources, 87 met their observing target of 12 successful sessions per year. The position uncertainties of all of the ICRF2-Gaia transfer sources have improved since the start of this observing program. For a subset of 24 sources whose positions were very poorly known, the uncertainty has decreased, on average, by a factor of four. This observing program is successful because the two main goals were reached for most of the 195 ICRF2-Gaia transfer sources: observing at the requested target of 12 successful sessions per year and improving the position uncertainties to better than 200{mu}as for both R.A. and decl. However, scheduling some of the transfer sources remains a challenge because of network geometry and the weakness of the sources, and this will be one focus of future sessions used in this ongoing program.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/555/A4
- Title:
- Radio polarimetry of CSS sources
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/555/A4
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present multi-frequency VLA polarisation observations of compact steep spectrum (CSS) sources. About half of the sources are point-like even at the resolution of about 0.1x0.1 arcseconds. The remaining sources have double or triple structure. Low values for the percentage of polarised emission in CSS sources is confirmed. On the average, quasars are more polarised than galaxies. A wide range of RM values have been measured. There are clear indications of very large RMs up to about 5585rad/m^2^. CSS galaxies are characterized by RM values that are larger than CSS quasars. The majority of the objects show very large values of RM.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/832/190
- Title:
- Radio sources in the NCP region with the 21CMA
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/832/190
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present a catalog of 624 radio sources detected around the North Celestial Pole (NCP) with the 21 Centimeter Array (21CMA), a radio interferometer dedicated to the statistical measurement of the epoch of reionization (EoR). The data are taken from a 12hr observation made on 2013 April 13, with a frequency coverage from 75 to 175MHz and an angular resolution of ~4'. The catalog includes flux densities at eight sub-bands across the 21CMA bandwidth and provides the in-band spectral indices for the detected sources. To reduce the complexity of interferometric imaging from the so-called "w" term and ionospheric effects, the present analysis is restricted to the east-west baselines within 1500m only. The 624 radio sources are found within 5deg around the NCP down to ~0.1Jy. Our source counts are compared, and also exhibit a good agreement, with deep low-frequency observations made recently with the GMRT and MWA. In particular, for fainter radio sources below ~1 Jy, we find a flattening trend of source counts toward lower frequencies. While the thermal noise (~0.4mJy) is well controlled to below the confusion limit, the dynamical range (~10^4^) and sensitivity of current 21CMA imaging are largely limited by calibration and deconvolution errors, especially the grating lobes of very bright sources, such as 3C061.1, in the NCP field, which result from the regular spacings of the 21CMA. We note that particular attention should be paid to the extended sources, and their modeling and removal may constitute a large technical challenge for current EoR experiments. Our analysis may serve as a useful guide to the design of next generation low-frequency interferometers like the Square Kilometre Array.
