See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/321419178

K-band Celestial Reference Frame: Can it be better than S/X?

Conference Paper · November 2017

CITATIONS READS
0 128

16 authors, including:

David Gordon Jonathan Quick

Retired National Research Foundation, South Africa
90 PUBLICATIONS   2,067 CITATIONS    92 PUBLICATIONS   1,391 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Aletha de Witt
National Research Foundation, South Africa
44 PUBLICATIONS   206 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Studying the ICRF 'defining' sources in the Southern Hemisphere using VLBI astrometric observations View project

K-band celestial Reference Frame View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Aletha de Witt on 01 December 2017.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

K-band Celestial Reference Frame: Can it be better than S/X?
A. de Witt, C. S. Jacobs, A. Bertarini, D. Gordon, J. McCallum, J. Quick, J. Lovell, A. Nothnagel
Abstract K-band (24-GHz) VLBI observations are
very rapidly realizing their potential to form the basis
for the most accurate celestial reference frame (CRF)
ever constructed. Relative to the standard S/X (2.3/8.4-
GHz) observing bands, AGN at K-band have more
compact source morphology and smaller core-shifts.
This reduction in astrophysical systematics allows a
more stable CRF at K-band. The only previous K-band
CRF had 268 sources. With the 16-fold increase in data
rate to 2 Gbps in our recently completed VLBA ob-
servations, we achieved a four-fold increase in sensi-
tivity relative to previous observations. This allowed
us to quickly double the number of sources to 551
while simultaneously improving the precision. In early
2017 we were awarded eight additional 24-hour VLBA
sessions to continue the improvement of the K-band
frame precision. With the inclusion of archival K-band
Galactic Plane observations and recent dedicated ob-
servations in the Southern Hemisphere, we now have
almost 800 sources in our K-band CRF. Our K-band
CRF now has better precision than the international
standard ICRF2. Our accuracy is currently limited by
∼100 microarcsecond level zonal errors that we plan
to address through increased southern observations us-
Aletha de Witt and Jonathan Quick
HartRAO, Krugersdorp, South Africa
Christopher Jacobs
JPL, California Institute of Technology/NASA, Pasadena, CA
Alessandra Bertarini
IGG, University of Bonn & MPIfR, Bonn, Germany
David Gordon
NVI, Inc./NASA GSFC, Greenbelt, MD, USA
Jamie McCallum and Jim Lovell
University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
Axel Nothnagel
IGG, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
ing HartRAO-Hobart single-baselines. Our analysis of
recently completed VLBA observations shows source
position precision improving as the number of delay
measurements to the −0.6 power. This improvement
with number of observations shows that our additional
observations will make rapid astrometric progress. We
are optimistic that these observations will become the
core of a K-band contribution to the ICRF3.
Keywords Astrometry, 24 GHz, quasar, VLBI, refer-
ence frame, ICRF
1 Introduction
High precision VLBI measurements of positions of ex-
tragalactic radio sources define and maintain the cur-
rent International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF2;
Ma et al., 2009), which forms the underlying basis
for positional astronomy. Unfortunately, at the stan-
dard S/X frequencies, many ICRF sources exhibit spa-
tially extended intrinsic structures that may vary with
time, frequency and baseline projection. Such structure
can introduce significant errors in the VLBI measure-
ments thereby degrading the accuracy of the estimated
sources positions (Charlot, 1990) and thus the stability
of S/X-band celestial reference frames (CRFs).
However, on VLBI scales at higher radio frequen-
cies, these extragalactic radio sources tend to exhibit
more compact source structure and reduced core-shift.
Thus, astrometric VLBI observations at higher radio
frequencies permit the construction of a more accurate
and well defined CRF which will also be advantageous
1
2 de Witt et al.
in tying the VLBI reference frame to optical reference
frames such as Gaia (Mignard et al., 2016).
In the last few years, considerable work has been
done and significant progress made on defining CRFs
at higher radio frequencies. Astrometric and imaging
observations by Lanyi et al. (2010) and Charlot et al.
(2010) provided a foundation for the development of a
reference frame at K-band. However, the Lanyi et al.
(2010) catalogue consists of only 268 sources with
weak coverage in the mid-south and no coverage in
the far south, several localised regions with no sources,
especially near the galactic plane and uncertainties in
source positions at the 100 µas level (see Figure 1).
Additional observations to improve the precision and
spatial coverage of the K-band CRF were thus needed.
Fig. 1 Distribution of 268 sources at 24 GHz from ten, 24-hour
observing sessions with the VLBA (Lanyi et al., 2010). Median
formal uncertainties are 80 µas in α cos(δ ) and 150 µas in δ .
Dedicated imaging and astrometric observations
to improve the K-band CRF started in 2014. Our
completed VLBA projects used a data rate of 2 Gbps
achieving a four-fold increase in sensitivity to previous
work allowing a tripling of the number of sources
while simultaneously improving the precision. With
the inclusion of archival K-band Galactic Plane
observations and complementary observations in the
Southern Hemisphere, there are now ∼800 sources
in the K-band CRF–comparable to the number of
regularly observed S/X sources.
Our K-band CRF now has better precision than
the international standard ICRF2 and better wRMS
agreement with the Gaia data release 1 auxilliary cat-
alog (Gaia DR1-aux; Mignard et al., 2016) than re-
cent S/X CRFs. We are optimistic that these obser-
vations will become the core of a K-band contribu-
tion to the next generation international celestial refer-
ence frame, the ICRF3. In addition, multi-epoch maps
will give us quantitative measures of the stability of
the source structures. Preliminary imaging shows that
these sources are compact on mas scales (de Witt et al.,
2016).
2 Observations and Data Analysis
We completed observations for VLBA projects BJ083
(de Witt et al., 2016) and UD001. Each of the ses-
sions was 24-hours in duration and we used a data rate
of 2 Gbps. The scans were 120 seconds in duration
and most sources were observed 3–4 times per session.
We have also completed observations of five Southern
Hemisphere sessions (KS1401 to KS1703), using the
Hobart-26m and HartRAO-26m antennas. The sessions
were all 24-hours in duration with a scan time of 2 min-
utes. Observations using a data rate of 2 Gbps started
in August 2016. These Southern Hemisphere, single-
baseline observations have already completed full sky
coverage for the K-band CRF.
All of the sessions accumulated in all K-band work
to date are listed in Table 1: 12 sessions from Lanyi
et al. (2010), 3 VLBA Galactic Plane sessions from
2006 (Petrov et al., 2011), 5 Southern Hemisphere ses-
sions from 2014, 2016 and 2017 and 12 VLBA ses-
sions at 2 Gbps from 2015 to 2017. Only 26 of the 32
sessions listed were available to include in the astro-
metric solution presented in this paper at the time of
publication. Sessions KS1702 and KS1703 as well as
UD001E, F, G and H have not been included in the as-
trometric solution presented in § 3 and 4.
Correlation of the VLBI data since 2014 used the
DiFX correlators (Deller et al., 2011) at Bonn Univer-
sity (KS sessions) or the VLBA (BJ083 and UD001
sessions). Fringe fitting was performed at the Bonn
correlator using the Haystack Observatory Postpro-
cessing System (HOPS) and the output converted into
geodetic-style databases. Astrometric analysis of each
session was made at the Goddard Space Flight Cen-
ter (GSFC) using the Calc/Solve analysis package. A
Solve global least squares solution was made using
all the available sessions. The global solution solved
for source positions, site positions, site velocities, and
Earth Orientation Parameters (EOP). Our frame was
aligned to ICRF2 with a no-net-rotation constraint us-
ing the 228 (of 295) ICRF2 defining sources in our data
set.
K-CRF: Can it be better than S/X? 3

K-band Date K-band Date

Session Name (yyyy-mm-dd) Session Name (yyyy-mm-dd)
BR079A 2002.05.15 KS1601 2016.07.29
BR079B 2002.08.25 KS1602 2016.11.22
BR079C 2002.12.26 KS1702* 2017.04.12
BL115A 2003.05.22 KS1703* 2017.04.23
BL115B 2003.09.13 BJ083A1 2015.12.15
BL115C 2004.02.15 BJ083B 2016.01.28
BL122A 2004.12.14 BJ083C 2016.06.06
BL122B 2005.08.26 BJ083D 2016.06.20
BL122C 2006.07.09 UD001A 2017.01.08
BL122D 2007.03.30 UD001B 2017.01.26
BL151A 2008.07.10 UD001C 2017.02.23
BL151B 2008.12.18 UD001D 2017.03.04
BP125A 2006.06.04 UD001E* 2017.04.09
BP125B 2006.06.11 UD001F* 2017.04.23
BP125C 2006.10.20 UD001G* 2017.05.11
KS1401 2014.05.04 UD001H* 2017.05.18
Table 1 Summary of Observations.
*Sessions not yet included in the astrometric solution. Fig. 2 The distribution of 788 sources at 24 GHz from twenty-
six, 24-hour observing sessions (Lanyi et al., 2010; Petrov et al.,
2011; de Witt et al., 2016). Parts a. and b. show the formal un-
certainties in α cos(δ ) and δ , respectively.
3 K-band Astrometric Catalog

There are now 788 sources in the K-band CRF, cov-

ering the full sky (Figures 2 and 3). The distribution
of the formal position uncertainties from the K-band
CRF are shown in Figure 2. The precision is much
lower for δ < −45◦ , where we only have a few sessions
from single-baseline observations. Median formal un-
certainties are 74 µas in α cos(δ ) and 137 µas in δ . For
comparison, the K and S/X median formal uncertain- Fig. 3 The distribution of 788 sources at 24 GHz showing the
ties for the 636 overlapping sources between K-band number of sessions accumulated in all K-band work used in the
and ICRF2 and the 676 overlapping sources between astrometric solution presented in this paper.
K-band and the most recent S/X solution are listed in
Table 2.
Most of the VLBA’s four-fold increase in sensitiv- The S/X CRF currently has only 794 sources with
ity since earlier K-band reference frame work should ten or more sessions per source. The distribution of
translate into improved source position precision. The sources in Figure 3 shows the number of K-band ses-
current K-band CRF shows source position precision sions accumulated per source. Considering that we
improving as the number of delay measurements to the need ∼4-5 sessions to go through our list of 788 K-
−0.6 power. We project improvement in precision with band CRF sources and assuming that we continue with
the addition of another 16 VLBA sessions (two ses- two observing sessions per month, we project that we
sions per month until around mid-2018), to ∼38 and can meet the S/X standard for well observed sources
∼71 µas precision in α cos(δ ) and δ , respectively. As (∼10 sessions per source) by mid-2018.
summarized in Table 2, it can be seen that the current
K-band CRF is already more precise than the ICRF2
and the projections indicate that the K-band CRF by 4 Catalog Comparisons
mid-2018 may be comparable in precision to the cur-
rent S/X frame.
We compared our K-band astrometric catalog to the
ICRF2 and the most recent S/X catalog (GSFC, S/X-
4 de Witt et al.

Catalog # Sources α cos(δ ) δ hour intervals and have a resolution of 2.5◦ by 5◦ in

[µas] [µas]
K-170324 768 74 137
K-projected − 38 71
K-170324 636 66 122
S/X-ICRF2-090316 636 107 147
K-170324 676 70 129
S/X-170502 676 40 62
Table 2 Median 1-σ formal uncertainties. Column 1 lists the
band and date of catalog. Column 2 lists the number of sources
or the number of overlapping sources between K and S/X cat-
alogs, excluding sources with only one delay measurement and
also outliers with > 5-σ differences in position between K and
S/X catalogs.
gsfc-170502). We also compared the ICRF2 catalog
to the most recent S/X catalog. For the various cat-
alog comparisons we computed position differences
in α cos(δ ) and δ , respectively. Outlier sources, with
more than 5-σ differences in position, were excluded.
The results for all catalog comparisons are summarized
in Table 3.
The current K-band CRF agrees about as well with
the current S/X frame as the ICRF2 does, but with a
much smaller ∆ δ vs. δ slope. The weighted RMS has
also improved quite a bit with the recent S/X solu-
tion. In the K-band solution from Lanyi et al. (2010),
the dominant systematic was the ∆ δ vs. δ slope at
−4.7 ± 0.28 µas/deg, but we have reduce this slope to
an insignificant −0.22 ± 0.13 µas/deg. However, there
is a large remaining systematic in ∆ α cos(δ ) vs. δ at
−1.18 ± 0.08 µas/deg.
Jacobs et al. (2017) also compared the K and S/X
catalogs to the Gaia DR1-aux optical catalog. The sum-
mary presented in Table 4 hints that results improve by
going to higher radio frequencies, with K-band show-
ing a lower percentage of outliers and smaller scatter
versus Gaia. Outliers with more than 5-σ differences in
position were excluded from the comparison. It should
be noted, however, that the results presented in Table 4
do not use the exact same objects for the S/X vs. Gaia
and K vs. Gaia comparisons.
5 Ionosphere Calibration
Delays due to the ionosphere were computed as de-
scribed in Lanyi et al. (2010), using GPS ionosphere
maps produced by JPL. These maps are given at 2-
latitude and longitude, respectively. Thus this method
cannot account for short-term ionospheric variations,
but should be able to remove a large fraction of the
effects of the more slowly varying components of the
ionosphere and greatly reduce the systematic effects of
the ionosphere.
In Figure 4 we show the effect of including GPS
obtained ionosphere calibration at K-band. On average
the ionospheric calibrations do not affect right ascen-
sions, but do make a 400 µas tilt in declinations. How-
ever, judging from the insignificant ∆ δ vs. δ slope of
our GPS calibrated K vs. direct dual-band calibrated
S/X (Table 3), we do not appear to be limited by the
ionosphere. We also note that the current solar cycle
is one of the weakest in the last century and this weak
cycle is heading into its minimum. This means that the
near future is expected to be an optimal time for single
frequency observations.
Fig. 4 The effect of including GPS obtained ionosphere calibra-
tion on ∆ δ (δ with GPS ionosphere calibration applied minus δ
without GPS ionosphere calibration applied) as a function of δ ,
at K-band. The effect on RA (not shown) was negligible.
6 Conclusions
Our goal is to continue the improvement of the K-band
CRF to match or exceed the precision of the future S/X
and Gaia frames. Our current K-band frame is already
more precise than the ICRF2, and the K-band precision
is projected to be comparable to the current S/X frame
at mid-2018. Our K-band results also have less scat-
ter relative to Gaia than S/X catalogs and have a lower
percentage of outliers. We believe that compared to the
current SX-based IAU standard, the K-band work is
 K-CRF: Can it be better than S/X? 5

Catalogs Compared # sources # outliers ∆ α cos(δ ) vs. δ ∆ δ vs. δ wRMS α cos(δ ) wRMS δ
( > 5-σ ) [µas/deg] [µas/deg] [µas] [µas]
K-170324 − S/X-ICRF2-090316 636 13 -1.28 ± 0.14 1.18 ± 0.19 133 165
K-170324 − S/X-170502 676 24 -1.18 ± 0.08 -0.22 ± 0.13 105 133
S/X-170502 − S/X-ICRF2-090316 2977 24 0.04 ± 0.07 1.01 ± 0.08 116 138
Table 3 Comparisons of astrometric catalogs at S/X and K bands. Column 1 lists the band and date of catalogs being compared.
Column 2 lists the number of overlapping sources and column 3 lists the number of outliers with > 5-σ differences in position.
Columns 4 & 5 list the ∆ α cos(δ ) vs. δ slope and the ∆ δ vs. δ slope, respectively. Columns 6 & 7 list the associated weighted RMS
differences about the weighted mean.

Catalogs Compared # sources # outliers % outliers wRMS α cos(δ ) wRMS δ Rx Ry Rz

(> 5-σ ) (> 5-σ ) [µas] [µas] [µas] [µas] [µas]
K-170324 − Gaia DR1-aux 481 13 2.6 439 455 100 ± 24 -7 ± 21 0 ± 23
S/X-170502 − Gaia DR1-aux 1984 106 5.0 536 544 32 ± 13 5 ± 11 28 ± 13
Table 4 Comparisons of astrometric VLBI catalogs and the Gaia DR1-aux catalog (Jacobs et al., 2017). Column 1 lists the band
and date of catalogs being compared, column 2 gives the number of overlapping sources. Columns 3 & 4 list the number and % of
outliers with > 5-σ differences in position. Columns 5 & 6 list the associated weighted RMS differences about the weighted mean.
Columns 7, 8 & 9 give the rotational alignment angles.

a much more efficient use of resources to achieve a
given level of astrometric precision while being far less
susceptible to astrophysical systematics. Work now in
progress to realize the full potential of the K-CRF in-
cludes increasing the temporal resolution of the GPS
calibrations to 15 minutes and gathering more south-
ern data including overlapping north-south baselines.
Noting that current S/X precision is very close
to the systematic source structure floor of ∼30 µas
(Le Bail, 2017), S/X will soon not be able to improve
any further while K-band’s structure floor is expected
to be a few times smaller allowing for improvement
for years to come. K-band also compares well to S/X
in the number of regularly observed sources. We are
well on our way towards realizing K-band’s potential
to be the basis of a world class reference frame.
Acknowledgements
2017.
c All rights reserved. U.S. Government sponsor-
ship acknowledged for the work done at JPL-Caltech
under a contract with NASA. The VLBA is operated by
the LBO since Oct. 2016 and previously by the NRAO,
both facilities of the National Science Foundation op-
erated under cooperative agreement by Associated
Universities. The authors gratefully acknowledge use
of the VLBA under the USNO’s time allocation. This
work supports USNO’s ongoing research into the
celestial reference frame and geodesy. HartRAO is a
facility of the National Research Foundation (NRF)
of South Africa. The Hobart telescope is operated
by the University of Tasmania and this research
has been supported by AuScope Ltd., funded under
the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure
Strategy (NCRIS).
References
P. Charlot, ‘Radio-source structure in astrometric and geodetic
very long baseline interferometry’, AJ, 99, 1309, 1990.
P. Charlot et al, ‘The Celestial Reference Frame at 24 and 43
GHz. II. Imaging’, AJ, 139, 1713, 2010
A.T. Deller et al, ‘DiFX-2: A More Flexible, Efficient, Robust,
and Powerful Software Correlator’, PASP, 123, 275, 2011.
A. de Witt et al, ‘Completing the K-band Celestial Reference
Frame in the North’, IVS General Meeting, South Africa,
pp. 302–306, 2016.
C. S. Jacobs et al, ‘Tying Multiple Radio Wavelength Celestial
Frames to the Gaia Optical Frame’, Astrometry & Astro-
physics in the Gaia Sky, IAU Symposium 330, Nice, France,
24-28 April 2017.
G.E. Lanyi et al, ‘The Celestial Reference Frame at 24 and 43
GHz. I. Astrometry’, AJ, 139, 1695, 2010.
K. Le Bail, ‘Investigating the noise floor of VLBI source posi-
tions’, 23rd EVGA, Gothenburg Sweden, 14-18 May 2017.
C. Ma et al, ‘The second realization of the International Celes-
tial Reference Frame by Very Long Baseline Interferome-
try’, IERS Technical Note 35, 2009.
F. Mignard et al, ‘Gaia Data Release 1. Reference frame and
optical properties of ICRF sources’, A&A, 595, 16, 2016.
L. Petrov et al, ‘The Very Long Baseline Array Galactic Plane
Survey-VGaPS’, AJ, 142, 35, 2011.

View publication stats