Characterizing and correcting the proper motion bias of the bright Gaia EDR3 sources

In this paper, we characterize magnitude-dependent systematics in the proper motions of the Gaia EDR3 catalog and provide a prescription for their removal. The reference frame of bright stars (G ≲ 13) in EDR3 is known to rotate with respect to extragalactic objects, but this rotation has proven diff...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Cantat-Gaudin, Tristan, Brandt, Timothy D.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:digital.csic.es:10261/254956
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/254956
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Astrometry
Proper motions
Methods: data analysis
Methods: statistical
Descripción
Sumario:In this paper, we characterize magnitude-dependent systematics in the proper motions of the Gaia EDR3 catalog and provide a prescription for their removal. The reference frame of bright stars (G ≲ 13) in EDR3 is known to rotate with respect to extragalactic objects, but this rotation has proven difficult to characterize and correct. We employ a sample of binary stars and a sample of open cluster members to characterize this proper motion bias as a magnitude-dependent spin of the reference frame. We show that the bias varies with G magnitude, reaching up to 80 μas yr-1 for sources in the range G = 11-13, several times the formal EDR3 proper motion uncertainties. We also show evidence for an additional dependence on the color of the source, with a magnitude up to ~10 μas yr-1. However, a color correction proportional to the effective wavenumber is unsatisfactory for very red or very blue stars, and we do not recommend its use. We provide a recipe for a magnitude-dependent correction to align the proper motion of the Gaia EDR3 sources brighter than G = 13 with the International Celestial Reference Frame.