Future space-borne astrometry missions, such as Gaia, will be able to determine the optical positions of hundreds of quasars with submilliarcsecond accuracies comparable to those achieved in radio by ...very long baseline interferometry (VLBI). Comparisons of coordinate systems from space-borne missions and VLBI will be very important, first for investigations of possible systematic errors and second for investigations of possible shifts between centroids of radio and optical emissions in active galactic nuclei. In order to make such a comparison more robust, a program for densification of the grid of radio sources detectable with both VLBI and Gaia was launched in 2006. Program sources are 398 quasars with declinations >-10degrees that are brighter than 18 mag at the V band. The first two observing campaigns were run in 2007-2008. In the third campaign, a set of 291 objects from that list was observed with the VLBA+EVN in 2010-2011 with the primary goal of producing their images with milliarcsecond resolution. In this paper, following the method of absolute astrometry, coordinates of observed sources have been derived with milliarcsecond accuracies from analysis of these observations. The catalog of positions of 295 target sources, estimates of their correlated flux densities at 2.2 and 8.4 GHz, and their images are presented. The accuracies of source coordinates are in a range of 2-200 mas, with a median of 3.2 mas.
Abstract
We interpret the recent discovery of a preferred very long baseline interferometry (VLBI)/Gaia offset direction for radio-loud active galactic nuclei (AGNs) along pc-scale radio jets as a ...manifestation of their optical structure on scales of 1–100 milliarcsec (mas). The extended jet structure affects the Gaia position more strongly than the VLBI position, due to the difference in observing techniques. Gaia detects total power, while VLBI measures a correlated quantity, visibility, and is therefore sensitive to compact structures. The synergy of VLBI, which is sensitive to the position of the most compact source component, usually associated with the opaque radio core, and Gaia, which is sensitive to the centroid of optical emission, opens a window of opportunity to study optical jets at milliarcsec resolution, two orders of magnitude finer than the resolution of most existing optical instruments. We demonstrate that strong variability of optical jets is able to cause a jitter comparable to the VLBI/Gaia offsets in a quiet state, i.e. several mas. We show that the VLBI/Gaia position jitter correlation with the AGN optical light curve may help to locate the region where a flare has occurred and estimate its distance from the supermassive black hole and the ratio of the flux density in the flaring region to the total flux density.
It is expected that the European Space Agency mission Gaia will make it possible to determine coordinates in the optical domain of more than 500,000 quasars. In 2006, a radio astrometry project was ...launched with the overall goal of making comparisons between coordinate systems derived from future space-born astrometry instruments and the coordinate system constructed from analysis of global very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) more robust. Investigation of the rotation, zonal errors, and non-alignment of the radio and optical positions caused by both radio and optical structures is needed to validate both techniques. In order to support these studies, the densification of the list of compact extragalactic objects that are bright in both radio and optical ranges is desirable. A set of 105 objects from the list of 398 compact extragalactic radio sources with decl. >--10? was observed with the Very Long Baseline Array and European VLBI Network (EVN) with the primary goal of producing images with milliarcsecond resolution. These sources are brighter than 18 mag in the V band, and they were previously detected by the EVN. In this paper, coordinates of observed sources have been derived with milliarcsecond accuracies from analysis of these VLBI observations using an absolute astrometry method. The catalog of positions for 105 target sources is presented. The accuracies of source coordinates are in the range of 0.3-7 mas, with a median of 1.1 mas.
ABSTRACT
We have analysed the differences in positions of 9081 matched sources between the Gaia Data Release 2 (DR2) and very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) catalogues. The median position ...uncertainty of matched sources in the VLBI catalogue is a factor of two larger than the median position uncertainty in Gaia DR2. There are 9 per cent matched sources with statistically significant offsets between both catalogues. We found that the reported positional errors should be rescaled by a factor of 1.3 for VLBI and 1.06 for Gaia and, in addition, the Gaia errors should be multiplied by the square root of chi squared per degree of freedom in order to best fit the normalized position differences to the Rayleigh distribution. We have established that the major contributor to statistically significant position offsets is the presence of optical jets. Among the sources for which the jet direction was determined, the position offsets are parallel to the jet directions for 62 per cent of the outliers. Among the matched sources with significant proper motion, the fraction of objects with proper motion directions parallel to jets is a factor of three greater than on average. Such sources have systematically higher chi squared per degree of freedom. We explain these proper motions as a manifestation of the source position jitter caused by flares, which we predicted earlier. Therefore, the assumption that quasars are fixed points, and thus that differential proper motions determined with respect to quasar photocentres can be regarded as absolute proper motions, should be treated with great caution.
We analyze differences in positions of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) between Gaia data release 2 and very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) and compare the significant VLBI-to-Gaia offsets in more ...than 1000 objects with their jet directions. Remarkably at least three-fourths of the significant offsets are confirmed to occur downstream or upstream of the jet representing a genuine astrophysical effect. Introducing redshift and Gaia color into analysis can help distinguish between the contribution of the host galaxy, jet, and accretion disk emission. We find that strong optical jet emission at least 20-50 pc long is required to explain the Gaia positions located downstream from VLBI ones. Offsets in the upstream direction of up to 2 mas are at least partly due to the dominant impact of the accretion disk on the Gaia coordinates and by the effects of the parsec-scale radio jet. The host galaxy was found not to play an important role in the detected offsets. BL Lacertae object and Seyfert 2 galaxies are observationally confirmed to have a relatively weak disk and consequently downstream offsets. The disk emission drives upstream offsets in a significant fraction of quasars and Seyfert 1 galaxies when it dominates over the jet in the optical band. The observed behavior of the different AGN classes is consistent with the unified scheme assuming varying contribution of the obscuring dusty torus and jet beaming.
We present the results of PSRπ, a large astrometric project targeting radio pulsars using the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). From our astrometric database of 60 pulsars, we have obtained ...parallax-based distance measurements for all but 3, with a parallax precision that is typically ∼45 as and approaches 10 as in the best cases. Our full sample doubles the number of radio pulsars with a reliable ( 5 ) model-independent distance constraint. Importantly, many of the newly measured pulsars are well outside the solar neighborhood, and so PSRπ brings a near-tenfold increase in the number of pulsars with a reliable model-independent distance at d > 2 kpc. Our results show that both widely used Galactic electron density distribution models contain significant shortcomings, particularly at high Galactic latitudes. When comparing our results to pulsar timing, two of the four millisecond pulsars in our sample exhibit significant discrepancies in their proper motion estimates. With additional VLBI observations that extend our sample and improve the absolute positional accuracy of our reference sources, we will be able to additionally compare pulsar absolute reference positions between VLBI and timing, which will provide a much more sensitive test of the correctness of the solar system ephemerides used for pulsar timing. Finally, we use our large sample to estimate the typical accuracy attainable for differential VLBA astrometry of pulsars, showing that for sufficiently bright targets observed eight times over 18 months, a parallax uncertainty of 4 as per arcminute of separation between the pulsar and calibrator can be expected.
On 2019/07/30.86853 UT, IceCube detected a high-energy astrophysical neutrino can-didate. The Flat Spectrum Radio Quasar PKS 1502+106 is located within the 50 percent uncertainty region of the event. ...Our analysis of 15 GHz Very Long Baseline Ar-ray (VLBA) and astrometric 8 GHz VLBA data, in a time span prior and after theIceCube event, reveals evidence for a radio ring structure which develops with time.Several arc-structures evolve perpendicular to the jet ridge line. We find evidence forprecession of a curved jet based on kinematic modelling and a periodicity analysis.An outflowing broad line region (BLR) based on the C IV line emission (Sloan Dig-ital Sky Survey, SDSS) is found. We attribute the atypical ring to an interaction ofthe precessing jet with the outflowing material.We discuss our findings in thecontext of a spine-sheath scenario where the ring reveals the sheath andits interaction with the surroundings (NLR clouds).We find that the radioemission is correlated with theγ-ray emission, with radio lagging theγ-rays. Basedon theγ-ray variability timescale, we constrain theγ-ray emission zone to the BLR(30-200rg) and within the jet launching region. We discuss that the outflowing BLRprovides the external radiation field forγ-ray production via external Compton scat-tering.The neutrino is most likely produced by proton-proton interactionin the blazar zone (beyond the BLR), enabled by episodic encounters ofthe jet with dense clouds, i.e. some molecular cloud in the NLR.
The kinetics of consumption of styrene epoxide
(2)
and accumulation of benzaldehyde
(3)
catalyzed by sulfuric acid
(1)
in an alcohol medium was studied in a bubbling glass reactor in an oxygen ...atmosphere. The dependences of the rates of consumption of
2
and accumulation of
3
on the concentrations of reactants
1
and
2
are of the same type:
V
2
=
k
2
1
1
2
0
,
V
3
=
k
3
1
1
2
0
. Data indicating an important role of the anions of acid catalysts in the conversions of epoxides were obtained.
Abstract
For the duration of the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope's mission, approximately one-third of the point sources detected have been noted as “unassociated,” meaning that they seem to have no ...known counterpart at any other wavelength/frequency. This mysterious part of the gamma-ray sky is perhaps one of the largest unknowns in current astronomical pursuits and as such has been probed extensively by various techniques at various frequencies. Radio frequencies have been perhaps one of the most fruitful, producing a large fraction of the identified and associated active galactic nuclei and pulsars noted in each update of the point-source catalogs. Here we present a catalog of 7432 radio counterpart candidates for unassociated gamma-ray fields in the Second Data Release of the Fourth Fermi Point Source Catalog (4FGL-DR2). A description of the catalog and source types is provided followed by a discussion that demonstrates how the results of this work will aid new associations and identifications. As part of this work, we also present a first catalog derived from “quicklook” images of the Very Large Array Sky Survey.
This paper presents accurate absolute positions from a 24 GHz Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) search for compact extragalactic sources in an area where the density of known calibrators with precise ...coordinates is low. The goals were to identify additional sources suitable for use as phase calibrators for galactic sources, determine their precise positions, and produce radio images. In order to achieve these goals, we developed a new software package, PIMA, for determining group delays from wide-band data with much lower detection limits. With the use of PIMA, we have detected 327 sources out of 487 targets observed in three 24 hr VLBA experiments. Among the 327 detected objects, 176 are within 10? of the Galactic plane. This VGaPS catalog of source positions, plots of correlated flux density versus projected baseline length, contour plots, as well as weighted CLEAN images, and calibrated visibility data are available on the Web in FITS format. Approximately one-half of objects from the 24 GHz catalog were observed at dual-band 8.6 GHz and 2.3 GHz experiments. Position differences at 24 GHz versus 8.6/2.3 GHz for all but two objects on average are strictly within reported uncertainties. We found that for two objects with complex structures, positions at different frequencies correspond to different components of a source.
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