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David Hobbs. Photo.

David Hobbs

Professor

David Hobbs. Photo.

Gaia Early Data Release 3 : Acceleration of the Solar System from Gaia astrometry

Author

  • S. A. Klioner
  • F. Mignard
  • L. Lindegren
  • U. Bastian
  • P. J. McMillan
  • J. Hernández
  • D. Hobbs
  • M. Ramos-Lerate
  • M. Biermann
  • A. Bombrun
  • A. De Torres
  • E. Gerlach
  • R. Geyer
  • T. Hilger
  • U. Lammers
  • H. Steidelmüller
  • C. A. Stephenson
  • A. G.A. Brown
  • A. Vallenari
  • T. Prusti
  • J. H.J. De Bruijne
  • C. Babusiaux
  • O. L. Creevey
  • D. W. Evans
  • L. Eyer
  • A. Hutton
  • F. Jansen
  • C. Jordi
  • X. Luri
  • C. Panem
  • D. Pourbaix
  • S. Randich
  • P. Sartoretti
  • C. Soubiran
  • N. A. Walton
  • F. Arenou
  • C. A.L. Bailer-Jones
  • M. Cropper
  • R. Drimmel
  • D. Katz
  • M. G. Lattanzi
  • C. Nicolas
  • M. Davidson
  • B. Holl
  • M. Smith
  • M. A. Álvarez
  • R. I. Anderson
  • S. G. Baker
  • A. Mastrobuono-Battisti
  • M. B. Taylor
Show all

Summary, in English

Context. Gaia Early Data Release 3 (Gaia EDR3) provides accurate astrometry for about 1.6 million compact (QSO-like) extragalactic sources, 1.2 million of which have the best-quality five-parameter astrometric solutions. Aims. The proper motions of QSO-like sources are used to reveal a systematic pattern due to the acceleration of the solar systembarycentre with respect to the rest frame of the Universe. Apart from being an important scientific result by itself, the acceleration measured in this way is a good quality indicator of the Gaia astrometric solution. Methods. Theeffect of the acceleration was obtained as a part of the general expansion of the vector field of proper motions in vector spherical harmonics (VSH). Various versions of the VSH fit and various subsets of the sources were tried and compared to get the most consistent result and a realistic estimate of its uncertainty. Additional tests with the Gaia astrometric solution were used to get a better idea of the possible systematic errors in the estimate. Results. Our best estimate of the acceleration based on Gaia EDR3 is (2.32 ± 0.16) × 10-10 m s-2 (or 7.33 ±0.51 km s-1 Myr-1) towards α = 269.1° ± 5.4°, δ = -31.6° ± 4.1°, corresponding to a proper motion amplitude of 5.05 ±0.35 μas yr-1. This is in good agreement with the acceleration expected from current models of the Galactic gravitational potential. We expect that future Gaia data releases will provide estimates of the acceleration with uncertainties substantially below 0.1 μas yr-1.

Department/s

  • Lund Observatory - Undergoing reorganization

Publishing year

2021-05-01

Language

English

Publication/Series

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Volume

649

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

EDP Sciences

Topic

  • Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology

Keywords

  • Astrometry
  • Galaxy: kinematics and dynamics
  • Methods: data analysis
  • Proper motions
  • Reference systems

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0004-6361