Parallactic delay for geodetic VLBI and non-orthogonality of the fundamental axes

TL;DR

This paper investigates the negative parallax observed in Gaia and VLBI data, attributing it to non-orthogonality of fundamental axes and proposing an extended relativistic delay model to explain the effect.

Contribution

The authors develop an extended relativistic delay model accounting for non-orthogonal axes, revealing a circular annual effect that explains negative parallax measurements.

Findings

The negative parallax is linked to non-orthogonality of fundamental axes.

The circular annual effect has an amplitude of 10-15 μas.

The effect is consistent with the stability of the ICRF3 reference frame.

Abstract

The Gaia optical astrometric mission has measured the precise positions of millions of objects in the sky, including extragalactic sources also observed by Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). In the recent Gaia EDR3 release, an effect of negative parallax with a magnitude of approximately -17 $\mu$as was reported, presumably due to technical reasons related to the relativistic delay model. A recent analysis of a 30-year set of geodetic VLBI data revealed a similar negative parallax with an amplitude of $-15.8 \pm 0.5$ $ \mu$as. Since both astrometric techniques, optical and radio, provide consistent estimates of this negative parallax, it is necessary to investigate the potential origin of this effect. We developed the extended group relativistic delay model to incorporate the additional parallactic effect for radio sources at distances less than 1 Mpc and found that the apparent annual signal might appear due the non-orthogonality of the fundamental axes, which are defined by the positions of the reference radio sources themselves. Unlike the conventional parallactic ellipse, the apparent annual effect in this case appears as a circular motion for all objects independently of their ecliptic latitude. The measured amplitude of this circular effect is within a range of 10-15 $\mu$as that is consistent with the ICRF3 stability of the fundamental axis. This annual circular effect could also arise if a G\"odel-type cosmological metric were applied, suggesting that, in the future, this phenomenon could be used to indicate global cosmic rotation.