English

Overall properties of the Gaia DR1 reference frame

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics 2017-03-15 v1

Abstract

We compare quasar positions of the auxiliary quasar solution with ICRF2 sources using different samples and evaluate the influence on the {\it Gaia} DR1 reference frame owing to the Galactic aberration effect over the J2000.0-J20015.0 period. Then we estimate the global rotation between TGAS with {\it Tycho}-2 proper motion systems to investigate the property of the {\it Gaia} DR1 reference frame. Finally, the Galactic kinematics analysis using the K-M giant proper motions is performed to understand the property of {\it Gaia} DR1 reference frame. The positional comparison between the auxiliary quasar solution and ICRF2 shows negligible orientation and validates the declination bias of \sim0.1-0.1\mas~in {\it Gaia} quasar positions with respect to ICRF2. Galactic aberration effect is thought to cause an offset \sim0.010.01\mas~of the ZZ axis direction of {\it Gaia} DR1 reference frame. The global rotation between TGAS and {\it Tycho}-2 proper motion systems, obtained by different samples, shows a much smaller value than the claimed value 0.240.24\masyr. For the Galactic kinematics analysis of the TGAS K-M giants, we find possible non-zero Galactic rotation components beyond the classical Oort constants: the rigid part ωYG=0.38±0.15\omega_{Y_G} = -0.38 \pm 0.15\masyr~and the differential part ωYG=0.29±0.19\omega^\prime_{Y_G} = -0.29 \pm 0.19\masyr~around the YGY_G axis of Galactic coordinates, which indicates possible residual rotation in {\it Gaia} DR1 reference frame or problems in the current Galactic kinematical model.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1702.04034,
  title  = {Overall properties of the Gaia DR1 reference frame},
  author = {N. Liu and Z. Zhu and J. -C. Liu and C. -Y. Ding},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1702.04034},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

6 pages, 1 figure. Accepted for publication in A&A

R2 v1 2026-06-22T18:17:32.766Z