The source structure of 0642+449 detected from the CONT14 observations

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method using closure delays from VLBI data to determine the structure of the radio source 0642+449, revealing a two-component structure and reducing delay residuals, enhancing source modeling accuracy.

Contribution

The study demonstrates a novel approach to source structure determination using closure delays without prior imaging or external data, improving VLBI source modeling.

Findings

Source 0642+449 has two nearly equally bright components.

Closure delays can be reduced from 139 ps to 90 ps with the two-component model.

Source structure effects can cause delays up to tens of nanoseconds.

Abstract

The CONT14 campaign with state-of-the-art VLBI data has observed the source 0642+449 with about one thousand observables each day during a continuous observing period of fifteen days, providing tens of thousands of closure delays---the sum of the delays around a closed loop of baselines. The closure delay is independent of the instrumental and propagation delays and provides valuable additional information about the source structure. We demonstrate the use of this new "observable" for the determination of the structure in the radio source 0642+449. This source, as one of the defining sources in the second realization of the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF2), is found to have two point-like components with a relative position offset of -426 microarcseconds in right ascension and -66 microarcseconds in declination. The two components are almost equally bright with a flux-density ratio of 0.92. The standard deviation of closure delays for source 0642+449 was reduced from 139 ps to 90 ps by using this two-component model. Closure delays larger than one nanosecond are found to be related to the source structure, demonstrating that structure effects for a source with this simple structure could be up to tens of nanoseconds. The method described in this paper does not rely on a priori source structure information, such as knowledge of source structure determined from direct (Fourier) imaging of the same observations or observations at other epochs. We anticipate our study to be a starting point for more effective determination of the structure effect in VLBI observations.