In recent years, radio interferometric observations have achieved high accuracy in determining the absolute values of trigonometric parallaxes and proper motions of maser radiation sources and radio stars. The error in determining the trigonometric parallaxes of these objects averages about 10 microarcseconds, which allows us to confidently study the geometric and kinematic properties of the distribution of stars located at great distances from the Sun, up to the center of the Galaxy. This article provides an overview of the main results of studying the structure and kinematics of the Galaxy, which were obtained by various scientific teams using VLBI observations of masers and radio stars. The main attention is paid to the results of studying the Galaxy obtained by the authors of this work.
Observations of the masers in the course of RadioAstron mission yielded detections of fringes for a number of sources in both water and hydroxyl maser transitions. Several sources display numerous ultra-compact details. This proves that implementation of the space VLBI technique for maser studies is possible technically and is not always prevented by the interstellar scattering, maser beaming and other effects related to formation, transfer, and detection of the cosmic maser emission. For the first time, cosmic water maser emission was detected with projected baselines exceeding Earth Diameter…
We present VLBI images and kinematics of water maser emission in three active galaxies: NGC 5728, Mrk 1, and IRAS 08452-0011. IRAS 08452-0011 is a triple-peaked H2O megamaser, consistent with a Keplerian rotating disk, indicating a black hole mass of (3.3+/-0.2)x10^7 M_sun. NGC 5728 and Mrk 1 display double-peaked spectra and VLBI imaging reveal complicated gas kinematics, which do not allow for a robust determination of black hole mass. The two systems are either gas disks perturbed by AGN winds or part of outflows. We find that disturbed morphology and kinematics are a ubiquitous feature of …
Context. The Gaia mission has released the second data set (Gaia DR2), which contains parallaxes and proper motions for a large number of massive, young stars. Aims. We investigate the spiral structure in the solar neighborhood revealed by Gaia DR2 and compare it with that depicted by VLBI maser parallaxes. Methods. We examined three samples with different constraints on parallax uncertainty and distance errors and stellar spectral types: (1) all OB stars with parallax errors of less than 10%; (2) only O-type stars with 0.1 mas errors imposed and with parallax distance errors of less than 0.2 …
We present observational results of water vapor maser emission with our high-sensitivity 22 GHz VLBI imaging of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 1068. In this galaxy, there are the following four nuclear radio sources; NE, C, S1, and S2. Among them, the S1 component has been identified as the nucleus while the C component has been considered as attributed to the radio jet. In our VLBI observation, we find the following two types of the water maser emission at the S1 component. One is the linearly aligned component that is considered as an edge-on disk with the inner radius of 0.62 pc. The dynamical mass…
SKA VLBI survey of the Southern sky for astrometry, geodesy, and astrophysics
GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences（GFZ亥姆霍兹地学研究中心）；NASA Goddard Space Flight Center（美国国家航空航天局戈达德太空飞行中心）；Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy（马克斯·普朗克射电天文研究所）
This paper reports observations of a 22 GHz water maser `superburst' in the G25.65+1.05 massive star forming region, conducted in response to an alert from the Maser Monitoring Organisation (M2O). Very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations using the European VLBI Network (EVN) recorded a maser flux density of $1.2 \times 10^{4}$ Jy. The superburst was investigated in the spectral, structural and temporal domains and its cause was determined to be an increase in maser path length generated by the superposition of multiple maser emitting regions aligning in the line of sight to the ob…
VLBI observations of SiO masers recover at most 40-50% of the total flux obtained by single dish observations at any spectral channel. Some previous studies seems to indicate that, at least, part of the lost flux is divided up into many weak components rather than in a large resolved emission area. Taking benefit of the high sensitivity and resolution of the HSA, we investigate the problem of the missing flux in VLBI observations of SiO maser emission at 7mm in the AGB stars and obtain a high dynamic range map of IRC+10011. We conclude that the missing flux is mostly contained in many very wea…
The trigonometric parallax of IRAS 23385+6053 and physical properties of molecular clouds based on the VLBI astrometry
Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Kagoshima University（鹿儿岛大学理工学研究科）；Curatorial division, Nagoya City Science Museum（名古屋市科学馆策展部）；Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University（名古屋大学理学研究科物理学科）；National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand (Public Organization)（泰国国家天文研究所）；Mizusawa VLBI Observatory, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan（日本国立天文台水泽VLBI观测站）；Astrobiology Center（天体生物学中心）；National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS)（日本国立天文台（NAOJ），国立自然科学研究院（NINS））
Spatio-kinematical structure of the Galactic Nuclear Stellar Disk revealed in VLBI astrometry of circumstellar masers
Kagoshima University（鹿儿岛大学）；Nagoya University（名古屋大学）；Joint Institute for VLBI ERIC（甚长基线干涉测量欧洲研究基础设施国际研究所）；Leiden University（莱顿大学）；University of Western Australia（西澳大学）
We compare the parallaxes of stars from VLBI astrometry in the literature to those in the Gaia DR2 catalog. Our full sample contains young stellar objects, evolved AGB stars, pulsars and other radio stars. Excluding AGB stars, which show significant discrepancies between Gaia and VLBI parallaxes, and stars in binary systems, we obtain an average, systematic, parallax offset of $-75 \pm 29~μ$as for Gaia DR2, consistent with their estimate of a parallax zero-point between $-100$ and 0 $μ$as.
Outside the Milky Way, the most luminous H2O masers at 22 GHz, called 'megamasers' because of their extreme luminosity with respect to the Galactic and extragalactic H2O masers associated with star formation, are mainly detected in active galactic nuclei. In the case of the H2O maser detected in the nuclear region of the galaxy TXS2226-184 for the first time the term 'gigamaser' was used. However, the origin of this very luminous H2O maser emission has never been investigated into details. We study the nature of the H2O gigamaser in TXS2226-184 by measuring for the first time its absolute posi…
In a rare and spectacular display, two well-known massive star forming regions, W49N and G25.65+1.05, recently underwent maser 'super burst' - their fluxes suddenly increasing above 30,000 and 18,000 Jy, respectively, reaching several orders of magnitude above their usual values. In quick-response, ToO observations with the EVN, VLBA and KaVA were obtained constituting a 4 week campaign - producing a high-cadence multi-epoch VLBI investigation of the maser emission. The combination of high-resolution, polarisation and flux monitoring during the burst provides one of the best accounts, to date,…
Identifying compact symmetric objects with high-precision VLBI and Gaia astrometry
Shanghai Astronomical Observatory（上海天文台）；Key Laboratory of Radio Astronomy, CAS（中国科学院射电天文重点实验室）；State Key Laboratory of Radio Astronomy and Technology（射电天文与技术国家重点实验室）；Konkoly Observatory（孔科利天文台）；HUN-REN Research Center for Astronomy and Earth Sciences（匈牙利研究与创新天文学与地球科学研究中心）；CSFK（孔科利天文台研究中心）；MTA Centre of Excellence（匈牙利科学院卓越中心）；Institute of Physics and Astronomy, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University（罗兰大学物理与天文研究所）；Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory, CAS（中国科学院新疆天文台）；Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, ASTRON（荷兰射电天文研究所）
Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) astrometry is a well established technique for achieving $\pm10~μ$as parallax accuracies at frequencies well above 10~GHz. At lower frequencies, uncompensated interferometer delays associated with the ionosphere play the dominant role in limiting the astrometric accuracy. Multiview is a novel VLBI calibration method, which uses observations of multiple quasars to accurately model and remove time-variable, directional-dependent changes to the interferometer delay. Here we extend the Multiview technique by phase referencing data to the target source ("inv…
With the publication of Gaia DR2, 1.3 billion stars now have public parallax and proper motion measurements. In this contribution, we compare the results for sources that have both optical and radio measurements, focusing on circumstellar masers. For these large, variable and bright AGB stars, the VLBI astrometry results can be more robust. Moreover, there are a number of applications where VLBI astrometry provides unique data for studying stellar populations and Galactic structure. The BeSSel project not only provides parallax and proper motions at much larger distances than Gaia can reach, b…
Based on published data, we have produced a sample of 256 radio sources whose trigonometric parallaxes and proper motions were measured by VLBI. This sample contains Galactic masers associated with massive protostars and stars in active star-forming regions. It also includes young low-mass stars from the Gould Belt region whose radio observations were performed in continuum. Based on this, most complete sample of sources to date, we have estimated the velocities $(U,V,W)_\odot$ and the parameters of the angular velocity of Galactic rotation $Ω_0, Ω^{(1)}_0, ... , Ω^{(4)}_0$ and obtained a new …
Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) is a strong, compact radio source believed to be powered by a super-massive black hole at the galactic center. Extinction by dust and gas in the galactic plane prevents observing it optically, but its position and proper motion have previously been estimated using radio interferometry. We present new VLBI absolute astrometry measurements of its precise position and proper motion in the frame of the third realization of the International Celestial Reference Frame, ICRF3. The observations used were made at 52 epochs on the VLBA at K-band (24 GHz) between June 2006 and Aug…
AR Scorpii (AR Sco), the only-known radio-pulsing white dwarf binary, shows unusual pulsating emission at the radio, infrared, optical and ultraviolet bands. To determine its astrometric parameters at the radio band independently, we conducted multi-epoch Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) phase-referencing observations with the European VLBI Network (EVN) at 5 GHz and the Chinese VLBI Network (CVN) plus the Warkworth 30-metre telescope (New Zealand) at 8.6 GHz. By using the differential VLBI astrometry, we provide high-precision astrometric measurements on the parallax ($π=8.52_{-0.07}^…
VLBI Astrometry of AGB Variables with VERA -- A Mira Type Variable T Lepus
2003 - 2006年，我们利用VERA对Mira变星天兔座T ~ Lep进行了相位参考VLBI观测。到源的距离由其年视差确定，其测量值为3.06 $\pm$ 0.04 mas，对应于327 $\pm$ 4\，pc的距离。我们的观测揭示了T~Lep中H $_2$ O脉泽的分布和内部运动学，并导出了一个源系统运动，在赤经和赤经上分别为14.60 $\pm$ 0.50 mas yr $-$和35.43 $\pm$ 0.79 mas yr $^{-1}$。我们还确定了LSR速度为$V_\mathrm{LSR}^{\ast} = -$ 27.63 km s $^{-1}$。与最近获得的VLTI红外干涉仪图像比较，我们的结果揭示了T~Lep星周结构的线性尺度图像。在银心坐标系中对源系统运动的分析表明，源系统存在一个大的奇异运动，这与AGB星的一般特征是一致的。该源对银河系Mira变星的周期光度关系的校准作出了贡献。从附近的米拉变量在文献中发现，其距离来自天体测量VLBI观测数据的汇编，我们校准了银河系的米拉周期光度关系到一个高的准确度。
VLBI Observations of H2O Maser Annual Parallax and Proper Motion in IRAS 20143+3634: Reflection on the Galactic Constants
本文报道了利用射电天文VLBI探测器（VERA）对IRAS 20143+3634恒星形成区H $_{2}$ O脉泽的VLBI观测结果。通过对脉泽的两年多跟踪，我们测量了$π= 0.367 \pm 0.037$脉泽的三角视差，对应于$D = 2.72 ^{+0.31}_{-0.25}$ kpc的源距离，并将其放置在本地旋臂中，我们的三角距离仅为以前基于径向速度估计的60%，显著影响了源的天体物理学。我们测量了R. A中$-2.99 \pm 0.16$ mas yr $^{-1}$和$-4.37 \pm 0.43$ mas yr $^{-1}$的自行。和Decl。分别用这两种方法估计了震源的特殊运动：对于$R_0=8$ kpc和$Θ_0=221$ km s $^{-1}$，估计的速度分别为$(U_{s},V_{s},W_{s}) = (-0.9 \pm 2.9, -8.5 \pm 1.6, +8.0 \pm 4.3)$ km s $^{-1}$;对于$R_0=8.5$ kpc和$Θ_0=235$ km s $^{-1}$，估计的速度分别为$(U_{s},V_{s},W_{s}) = (-1.0 \pm 2.9, -9.3 \pm 1.5, +8.0 \pm 4.3)$ km s $^{-1}$。IRAS 20143+3634位于天鹅座方向的切点附近。利用我们的观测结果，我们导出了地方静…
We report on recent technical developments in the front- and back-ends for the four 20 m radio telescopes of the Japanese Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) project, VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry (VERA). We present a brief overview of a dual-circular polarization receiving and ultrawideband (16 Giga bit s$^{-1}$) recording systems that were installed on each of the four telescopes operating at 22 and 43 GHz bands. The wider-band capability improves the sensitivity of VLBI observations for continuum emission, and the dual-polarization capability enables the study of magnetic fields…
Ejection activities in S255IR-SMA1 and AFGL 5142 were investigated by multi-epoch VLBI observations of 22 GHz water masers, tracing bowshocks leading collimated jets. The history of ejections, revealed by the 3D maser motions and supplemented by the literature, suggests that these massive stars formed by episodic accretion, inferred via the accretion-ejection connection. This contribution centers on the role of episodic accretion in overcoming the radiation pressure problem of massive star formation - with maser VLBI and single-dish observations providing essential observational tools.
VLBI multi-epoch water maser observations toward massive protostars
VLBI多历元水脉泽观测是研究与大质量原恒星早期演化相关现象的中心引擎附近气体的有力工具。本文总结了仙王座A和W75N大质量恒星形成区的主要观测结果。这些观测揭示了大质量物体演化最早阶段的意外现象（例如，不同大质量原恒星中的非准直“短寿命”脉冲喷射），并为研究大质量恒星形成的动态场景提供了新的见解（例如，在大质量天体Cep A HW 2中同时存在喷流和广角外流，类似于在低质量原恒星中观察到的情况）。此外，通过这些观测，有可能通过外流活动识别新的、以前看不见的高质量恒星形成中心。
IRAS 16293-2422 is a very well studied young stellar system seen in projection towards the L1689N cloud in the Ophiuchus complex. However, its distance is still uncertain with a range of values from 120 pc to 180 pc. Our goal is to measure the trigonometric parallax of this young star by means of H$_2$O maser emission. We use archival data from 15 epochs of VLBA observations of the 22.2 GHz water maser line. By modeling the displacement on the sky of the H$_2$O maser spots, we derived a trigonometric parallax of $7.1\pm1.3$ mas, corresponding to a distance of $141_{-21}^{+30}$ pc. This new dis…
Recent advances in VLBI have led to astrometric accuracy exceeding that of the Gaia mission goals. This chapter describes some important astrophysical problems that can be addressed with sub-milliarcsecond imaging and micro-arcsecond astrometry using the ngVLA with long baselines.
Recent studies have shown that 6.7 GHz methanol maser flares can be a powerful tool for verifying the mechanisms of maser production and even the specific signatures of accretion rate changes in the early stages of high-mass star formation. We characterize the spatial structure and evolution of methanol and water masers during a flare of methanol maser emission at 6.7 GHz in the HMYSO G24.33$+$0.14. VLBA was used to image the 6.7 and 12.2 GHz methanol and 22.2 GHz water vapor masers at three epochs guided by monitoring the methanol line with the Torun 32m telescope. The 6.7 GHz maser maps were…
VLBI astrometry of radio stars to link radio and optical celestial reference frames - II. 11 radio stars
Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院上海天文台）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；Department of Geodesy and Geodynamics, Finnish Geospatial Research Institute (FGI), National Land Survey of Finland（芬兰国家土地测量局芬兰地理研究所大地测量与地球动力学系）；Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute（韩国天体物理与空间科学研究所）；University of Helsinki（赫尔辛基大学）；Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics（哈佛-史密森尼天体物理中心）
We present multi-epoch observations with the VLBA of SiO maser emission in the v=1, J=1-0 transition at 43 GHz from the remnant of the red nova V838 Mon. We model the positions of maser spots to derive a parallax of 0.166+/-0.060 mas. Combining this parallax with other distance information results in a distance of 5.6+/-0.5 kpc, which agrees with an independent geometric distance of 6.1+/-0.6 kpc from modeling polarimetry images of V838 Mon's light echo. Combining these results, and including a weakly constraining Gaia DR2 parallax, yields a best estimate of distance of 5.9+/-0.4 kpc. The mase…
We aim to reveal the structure and kinematics of the Outer-Scutum-Centaurus (OSC) arm located on the far side of the Milky Way through very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) astrometry using KaVA, which is composed of KVN (Korean VLBI Network) and VERA (VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry). We report the proper motion of a 22 GHz H$_{2}$O maser source, which is associated with the star-forming region G034.84$-$00.95, to be ($μ_α \rm{cos}δ$, $μ_δ$) = ($-$1.61$\pm$0.18, $-$4.29$\pm$0.16) mas yr$^{-1}$ in equatorial coordinates (J2000). We estimate the 2D kinematic distance to the source to be…
East Asian VLBI Network astrometry toward the star-forming region G040.96+02.48 in the Extreme Outer Galaxy
Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院紫金山天文台）；School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Science and Technology of China（中国科学技术大学天文与空间科学学院）；National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand (Public Organization)（泰国国家天文研究所）；Mizusawa VLBI Observatory, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan（日本国立天文台水泽VLBI观测站）；National Time Service Center, Key Laboratory of Precise Positioning and Timing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院国家授时中心精密定位与授时技术重点实验室）
Astrometry at centimeter wavelengths using Very Long Baseline Interferometry is approaching accuracies of ~1 uas for the angle between a target and a calibrator source separated by <1 degree on the sky. The BeSSeL Survey and the Japanese VERA project are using this to map the spiral structure of the Milky Way by measuring trigonometric parallaxes of hundreds of maser sources associated with massive, young stars. This paper outlines how micro-arcsecond astrometry is done, including details regarding the scheduling of observations, calibration of data, and measuring positions.
We conducted multi-epoch VLBA phase reference observations of LS I +61 303 in order to study its precessing radio jet. Compared to similar observations in 2006, we find that the observed elliptical trajectory of emission at 8.4 GHz repeats after the 9-year gap. The accurate alignment of the emission patterns yields a precession period of 26.926 +- 0.005 d, which is consistent with that determined by Lomb-Scargle analysis of the radio light curve. We analytically model the projection on the sky plane of the peak position of a precessing, synchrotron-emitting jet, which traces an elliptical traj…
