Toward reinforcing the link between Gaia and ICRF frames

TL;DR

This paper explores methods to improve the accuracy of linking the radio-based ICRF and optical GCRF celestial reference frames, focusing on increasing common sources and analyzing coordinate correlations to achieve microarcsecond precision.

Contribution

It proposes advanced scheduling of VLBI sessions to include more southern sources and examines the impact of coordinate correlations on frame orientation accuracy.

Findings

Including southern sources enhances the ICRF-GCRF link without losing accuracy.

Coordinate correlations can influence orientation angles by tens of microarcseconds.

Additional scheduling strategies can improve the link precision.

Abstract

The link problem between radio (VLBI/ICRF) and optical (Gaia/GCRF) celestial reference frames is analyzed. Both systems should be a realization of the ICRS (International Celestial Reference System) at microarcsecond level of accuracy. Therefore, the link between the ICRF and GCRF should be obtained with similar accuracy, which is not a trivial task due to relatively large systematic and random errors in source positions at different frequency bands. In this presentation, additional possibilities to improve the GCRF-ICRF link accuracy are discussed. In particular, a possibility to increase the number of ICRF and GCRF common objects is considered using advanced scheduling of the regular IVS sessions such as R1 and R4. It is shown that inclusion of supplement prospective southern sources in these sessions allows enriching southern ICRF zone without noticeable loss of accuracy of geodetic results. Another topic discussed in this presentation is using the correlations between radio source coordinates, which can impact the orientation angles between two frames at a level of a few tens of microarcseconds.