2020/03/10 by Tomoya Hirota, Takumi Nagayama, Mareki Honma +58 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Radio Astronomy Observations and Technology #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/pasj/psaa018
openalex publication_date 2020/03/10 · openalex created_date 2020/05/01 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Abstract We present the first astrometry catalog from the Japanese VLBI (very long baseline interferometer) project VERA (VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry). We have compiled all the astrometry results from VERA, providing accurate trigonometric-annual-parallax and proper-motion measurements. In total, 99 maser sources are listed in the VERA catalog. Among them, 21 maser sources are newly reported, while the rest of the 78 sources are referred to in previously published results or those in preparation for forthcoming papers. The accuracy in the VERA astrometry is revisited and compared with that from the other VLBI astrometry projects such as BeSSeL (The Bar and Spiral Structure Legacy) Survey and GOBELINS (the Gould’s Belt Distances Survey) with the VLBA (Very Long Baseline Array). We have confirmed that most of the astrometry results are consistent with each other, and the largest error sources are due to source structure of the maser features and their rapid variation, along with the systematic calibration errors and different analysis methods. Combined with the BeSSeL results, we estimate the up-to-date fundamental Galactic parameters of R0=7.92± 0.16_\rm stat.± 0.3_\rm sys. kpc and Ω \odot =30.17± 0.27_\rm stat.± 0.3_\rm sys. km s-1 kpc-1, where R0 and Ω \odot are the distance from the Sun to the Galactic center and the Sun’s angular velocity of the Galactic circular rotation, respectively.