Gaia DR3 data (both Gaia EDR3 and the full Gaia DR3) are based on data collected between 25 July 2014 (10:30 UTC) and 28 May 2017 (08:44 UTC), spanning a period of 34 months. As a comparison, Gaia DR2 was based on 22 months of data and Gaia DR1 was based on observations collected during the first 14 months of Gaia's routine operational phase. Survey completeness: The Gaia EDR3 catalogue is essentially complete between G=12 and G=17. The source list for the release is incomplete at the bright end and has an ill-defined faint magnitude limit, which depends on celestial position. The combination of the Gaia scan law coverage and the filtering on data quality which will be done prior to the publication of Gaia EDR3, does lead to some regions of the sky displaying source density fluctuations that reflect the scan law pattern. In addition, small gaps exist in the source distribution, for instance close to bright stars. Astrometry: The parallax improvement is typically 20% with respect to Gaia DR2. The proper motions are typically a factor two better than in Gaia DR2. An overall reduction of systematics has been achieved. E.g., the parallax zero point deduced from the extragalactic sources is about -20{mu}as. A tentative correction formula for the parallax zero point will be provided. Closer to the release date of Gaia Early Data Release 3, an update will be given on the astrometry. Photometry: The G-band photometric uncertainties are ~0.25mmag for G<13, 1mmag at G=17, and 5mmag at G=20mag. The GBP-band photometric uncertainties are ~1mmag for G<13, 10mmag at G=17, and 100mmag at G=20mag. The GRP-band photometric uncertainties are ~1mmag for G<13, 5mmag at G=17, and 50mmag at G=20mag. Closer to the release date of Gaia Early Data Release 3, an update will be given on the photometry. Gaia EDR3 does not contain new radial velocities. The radial velocities of Gaia Data Release 2 have been added to Gaia EDR3 in order to ease the combination of spectrosopic and astrometric data. Radial velocities: Gaia EDR3 hence contains Gaia DR2 median radial velocities for about 7.21 million stars with a mean G magnitude between ~4 and ~13 and an effective temperature (Teff) in the range ~3550 to 6900K. The overall precision of the radial velocities at the bright end is of the order of ~200-300m/s while at the faint end, the overall precision is ~1.2km/s for a Teff of 4750K and ~3.5km/s for a Teff of 6500K. Before publication in Gaia EDR3, an additional filtering has been performed onto the Gaia DR2 radial velocities to remove some 4000 sources that had wrong radial velocities. Please be aware that the Gaia DR2 values are assigned to the Gaia EDR3 sources through an internal cross-match operation. In total, ~10000 Gaia DR2 radial velocities could not be associated to a Gaia EDR3 source. Astrophysical parameters: Gaia EDR3 does not contain new astrophysical parameters. Astrophysical parameters have been published in Gaia DR2 and a new set is expected to be released with the full Gaia DR3 release. Variable stars: Gaia EDR3 does not contain newly classified variable stars. For the overview of the currently available variable stars from Gaia DR2, have a look here. Classifications for a larger set of variable stars are expected with the full Gaia DR3 release. Solar system objects: A large set of solar system objects with orbits will become available with the full Gaia DR3 release. Information on the currently available asteroids in Gaia DR2 can be found here. Documentation: Data release documentation is provided along with each data release in the form of a downloadable PDF and a webpage. The various chapters of the documentation have been indexed at ADS allowing them to be cited. Please visit the Gaia Archive (https://gea.esac.esa.int/archive) to access this documentation, and make sure to check out all relevant information given through the documentation overview page (https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/gaia-users/archive).
We present a sub-arcsecond cross-match of Gaia DR2 (Cat. I/345) against the INT Photometric H-alpha Survey of the Northern Galactic Plane Data Release 2 (IPHAS DR2, Cat. II/321) and the Kepler-INT Survey (KIS, Cat. J/AJ/144/24). The resulting value-added catalogues (VACs) provide additional precise photometry to the Gaia photometry (r, i and H-alpha for IPHAS, with additional U and g for KIS). In building the catalogue, proper motions given in Gaia DR2 are wound back to match the epochs of IPHAS DR2, thus ensuring high proper motion objects are appropriately cross-matched. The catalogues contain 7927224 and 791071 sources for IPHAS and KIS, respectively. The requirement of >5 sigma parallax detection for every included source means that distances out to 1-1.5kpc are well covered. We define two additional parameters for each catalogued object: (i) fc, a magnitude-dependent tracer of the quality of the Gaia astrometric fit; (ii) fFP, the false-positive rate for parallax measurements determined from astrometric fits of a given quality at a given magnitude. Selection cuts based on these parameters can be used to clean colour-magnitude and colour-colour diagrams in a controlled and justified manner. We provide both full and light versions of the VAC, with VAC-light containing only objects that represent our recommended trade-off between purity and completeness. Uses of the catalogues include the identification of new variable stars in the matched data sets, and more complete identification of H-alpha-excess emission objects thanks to separation of high-luminosity stars from the main sequence.
We present mean absolute proper motion measurements for seven ultra- faint dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way, namely Bootes III, Carina II, Grus II, Reticulum II, Sagittarius II, Segue 2 and Tucana IV. For four of these dwarfs our proper motion estimate is the first ever provided. The adopted astrometric data come from the second data release of the Gaia mission. We determine the mean proper motion for each galaxy starting from an initial guess of likely members, based either on radial velocity measurements or using stars on the Horizontal Branch identified in the Gaia (G_BP_-G_RP_, G) colour-magnitude diagram in the field of view towards the UFD. We then refine their membership iteratively using both astrometry and photometry. We take into account the full covariance matrix among the astrometric parameters when deriving the mean proper motions for these systems. Our procedure provides mean proper motions with typical uncertainties of ~0.1mas/yr, even for galaxies without prior spectroscopic information. In the case of Segue 2 we find that using radial velocity members only leads to biased results, presumably because of the small number of stars with measured radial velocities. Conclusions: our procedure allows to maximize the number of member stars per galaxy regardless of the existence of prior spectroscopic information, and can therefore be applied on any faint or distant stellar system within reach of Gaia.
We combine Gaia DR1, PS1, Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), and 2MASS astrometry to measure proper motions for 350 million sources across three-fourths of the sky down to a magnitude of m_r_~20. Using positions of galaxies from PS1, we build a common reference frame for the multi-epoch PS1, single-epoch SDSS and 2MASS data, and calibrate the data in small angular patches to this frame. As the Gaia DR1 excludes resolved galaxy images, we choose a different approach to calibrate its positions to this reference frame: we exploit the fact that the proper motions of stars in these patches are linear. By simultaneously fitting the positions of stars at different epochs of-Gaia DR1, PS1, SDSS, and 2MASS-we construct an extensive catalog of proper motions dubbed GPS1. GPS1 has a characteristic systematic error of less than 0.3mas/yr and a typical precision of 1.5-2.0mas/yr. The proper motions have been validated using galaxies, open clusters, distant giant stars, and QSOs. In comparison with other published faint proper motion catalogs, GPS1's systematic error (<0.3mas/yr) should be nearly an order of magnitude better than that of PPMXL and UCAC4 (>2.0mas/yr). Similarly, its precision (~1.5mas/yr) is a four-fold improvement relative to PPMXL and UCAC4 (~6.0mas/yr). For QSOs, the precision of GPS1 is found to be worse (~2.0-3.0mas/yr), possibly due to their particular differential chromatic refraction.
We use 612 single stars with previously published trigonometric parallaxes placing them within 25pc to evaluate parallaxes released in Gaia's first data release (DR1). We find that the Gaia parallaxes are, on average, 0.24+/-0.02mas smaller than the weighted mean trigonometric parallax values for these stars in the solar neighborhood. We also find that the offset changes with distance out to 100pc, in the sense that the closer the star, the larger the offset. We find no systematic trends in the parallax offsets with stellar V magnitude, V-K color, or proper motion. We do find that the offset is roughly twice as large for stars south of the ecliptic compared to those that are north.
I have used high-precision photometry and astrometry from the second data release of the Gaia mission to perform a survey for young stars associated with the Lupus clouds, which have distances of ~160pc and reside within the Scorpius-Centaurus (Sco-Cen) OB association. The Gaia data have made it possible to distinguish Lupus members from most of the stars in other groups in Sco-Cen that overlap with the Lupus clouds, which have contaminated previous surveys. The new catalog of candidate Lupus members should be complete for spectral types earlier than M7 at AK<0.2 within fields encompassing clouds 1-4. I have used that catalog to characterize various aspects of the Lupus stellar population. For instance, the sequence of low- mass stars in Lupus is ~0.4mag brighter than the sequence for Upper Sco, which implies an age of ~6Myr based an adopted age of 10-12Myr for Upper Sco and the change in luminosity with age predicted by evolutionary models. I also find that the initial mass function in Lupus is similar to that in other nearby star-forming regions based on a comparison of their distributions of spectral types.
We perform parallel Lomb-Scargle and Generalized Lomb-Scargle periodogram analysis of the Ks-band time series of the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea Survey, to detect periodicities. We take account of periods, light amplitudes, distances and proper motions to provide a classification of the candidate variables. We provide a catalog which will be the starting point for future spectroscopic surveys in the innermost regions of the Galaxy.
The definition, construction and realization of a reference system is one of the oldest and most fundamental tasks of astronomy. Currently, the ICRS (International Celestial Reference System), realized by the ICRF (International Celestial Reference Frame) or ICRF2, is the reference system adopted by the IAU. It is based on the very precise VLBI positions of a few hundred compact extragalactic radio sources. Despite its excellent precision, the ICRF is far from providing a reference system that is available for the entire sky and accessible to all observers. The ICRF has to be densified and extended to other wavelengths, mainly to the optical domain where the astronomical activities are more intense. For this reason, the IAU has recommended and encouraged works in this direction over the years. Many of them were developed to give sometimes good positions and proper motions, but they are very limited in magnitude, while others are extremely dense and deep in magnitude but have low accuracy, mainly for the proper motions. Nevertheless, all these contributions are very important because they are complementary. We present a homogeneous and precise optical astrometric catalog that extends the ICRF in the direction of 12 low-extinction windows of the Galactic bulge and provides at the same time a useful database for kinematic studies.
Galactic Center secondary IR astrometric standards
Short Name:
J/ApJ/830/17
Date:
21 Oct 2021
Publisher:
CDS
Description:
We present new, more precise measurements of the mass and distance of our Galaxy's central supermassive black hole, Sgr A*. These results stem from a new analysis that more than doubles the time baseline for astrometry of faint stars orbiting Sgr A*, combining 2 decades of speckle imaging and adaptive optics data. Specifically, we improve our analysis of the speckle images by using information about a star's orbit from the deep adaptive optics data (2005-2013) to inform the search for the star in the speckle years (1995-2005). When this new analysis technique is combined with the first complete re-reduction of Keck Galactic Center speckle images using speckle holography, we are able to track the short-period star S0-38 (K-band magnitude=17, orbital period=19yr) through the speckle years. We use the kinematic measurements from speckle holography and adaptive optics to estimate the orbits of S0-38 and S0-2 and thereby improve our constraints of the mass (M_bh_) and distance (R_o_) of SgrA*: M_bh_=(4.02+/-0.16+/-0.04)x10^6^M_{sun}_ and 7.86+/-0.14+/-0.04kpc. The uncertainties in M_bh_ and R_o_ as determined by the combined orbital fit of S0-2 and S0-38 are improved by a factor of 2 and 2.5, respectively, compared to an orbital fit of S0-2 alone and a factor of ~2.5 compared to previous results from stellar orbits. This analysis also limits the extended dark mass within 0.01 pc to less than 0.13x10^6^M_{sun}_ at 99.7% confidence, a factor of 3 lower compared to prior work.
Classical Cepheids (CCs) and RR Lyrae stars (RRLs) are important classes of variable stars used as standard candles to estimate galactic and extragalactic distances. Their multiplicity is imperfectly known, particularly for RRLs. Astoundingly, only one RRL is convincingly demonstrated to be a binary as of today, TU UMa, out of tens of thousands of known RRLs. We aim at detecting the binary and multiple stars present in a sample of Milky Way CCs and RRLs. In the present article, we combine the Hipparcos and Gaia DR2 positions to determine the mean proper motion of the targets, and we search for proper motion anomalies (PMa) caused by close-in orbiting companions. We identify 57 CC binaries from PMa out of 254 tested stars, and 75 additional candidates, confirming the high binary fraction of these massive stars. For 28 binary CCs, we determine the companion mass by combining their spectroscopic orbital parameters and astrometric PMa. We detect 13 RRLs showing a significant PMa out of 198 tested stars, and 61 additional candidates. We determine that the binarity fraction of CCs is likely above 80%, while that of RRLs is at least 7%. The newly detected systems will be useful to improve our understanding of their evolutionary states. The discovery of a significant number of RRLs in binary systems also resolves the long-standing mystery of their extremely low apparent binarity fraction.
