Inverse Multiview. I. Multicalibrator Inverse Phase Referencing for Microarcsecond Very Long Baseline Interferometry Astrometry

Abstract

Abstract Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) astrometry is a well established technique for achieving ±10 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 (“inverse Multiview”) and test its performance. Multiple observations with a four-antenna VLBI array operating at 8.3 GHz show single-epoch astrometric accuracies near 20 μ as for target–reference quasar separations up to about 7°. This represents an improvement in astrometric accuracy by up to an order of magnitude compared to standard phase-referencing.