Improved GRAVITY astrometric accuracy from modeling of optical aberrations

Abstract

The GRAVITY instrument on the ESO VLTI pioneers the field of high-precision near-infrared interferometry by providing astrometry at the $10-100\mu$as level. Measurements at such high precision crucially depend on the control of systematic effects. Here, we investigate how aberrations introduced by small optical imperfections along the path from the telescope to the detector affect the astrometry. We develop an analytical model that describes the impact of such aberrations on the measurement of complex visibilities. Our formalism accounts for pupil-plane and focal-plane aberrations, as well as for the interplay between static and turbulent aberrations, and successfully reproduces calibration measurements of a binary star. The Galactic Center observations with GRAVITY in 2017 and 2018, when both Sgr A* and the star S2 were targeted in a single fiber pointing, are affected by these aberrations at a level of less than 0.5 mas. Removal of these effects brings the measurement in harmony with the dual beam observations of 2019 and 2020, which are not affected by these aberrations. This also resolves the small systematic discrepancies between the derived distance $R_0$ to the Galactic Center reported previously.

References in corpus (31)

• Monitoring stellar orbits around the Massive Black Hole in the Galactic Center
• The Galaxy in Context: Structural, Kinematic and Integrated Properties
• Measuring Distance and Properties of the Milky Way's Central Supermassive Black Hole with Stellar Orbits
• The Galactic Center Massive Black Hole and Nuclear Star Cluster
• Detection of the gravitational redshift in the orbit of the star S2 near the Galactic centre massive black hole
• A geometric distance measurement to the Galactic Center black hole with 0.3% uncertainty
• Trigonometric Parallaxes Of High-Mass Star Forming Regions: Our View Of The Milky Way
• The First Measurement of Spectral Lines in a Short-Period Star Bound to the Galaxy's Central Black Hole: A Paradox of Youth
• SINFONI in the Galactic Center: young stars and IR flares in the central light month
• First Light for GRAVITY: Phase Referencing Optical Interferometry for the Very Large Telescope Interferometer
• Detection of the Schwarzschild precession in the orbit of the star S2 near the Galactic centre massive black hole
• First Results from the CHARA Array. II. A Description of the Instrument
• Relativistic redshift of the star S0-2 orbiting the Galactic center supermassive black hole
• An Update on Monitoring Stellar Orbits in the Galactic Center
• The orbit of the star S2 around SgrA* from VLT and Keck data
• An Improved Distance and Mass Estimate for Sgr A* from a Multistar Orbit Analysis
• Faceting for direction-dependent spectral deconvolution
• Radio interferometric gain calibration as a complex optimization problem
• The old nuclear star cluster in the Milky Way: dynamics, mass, statistical parallax, and black hole mass
• The fundamental definition of 'radial velocity'
• Correcting direction-dependent gains in the deconvolution of radio interferometric images
• Twelve years of spectroscopic monitoring in the Galactic Center: the closest look at S-stars near the black hole
• Revisiting the radio interferometer measurement equation. II. Calibration and direction-dependent effects
• On the nature of the fast moving star S2 in the Galactic Center
• Pinpointing the near-infrared location of Sgr A* by correcting optical distortion in the NACO imager
• Investigating the Binarity of S0-2: Implications for its Origins and Robustness as a Probe of the Laws of Gravity around a Supermassive Black Hole
• Reaching micro-arcsecond astrometry with long baseline optical interferometry; application to the GRAVITY instrument
• The fiber coupler and beam stabilization system of the GRAVITY interferometer
• Single-mode interferometric field of view in partial turbulence correction. Application to the observation of the environment of Sgr A* with GRAVITY
• GRAVITY: the Calibration Unit
• Unrecognized Astrometric Confusion in the Galactic Centre

Cited by in corpus (118)

• First Dark Matter Search Results from the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) Experiment
• First Sagittarius A* Event Horizon Telescope Results. VI: Testing the Black Hole Metric
• First Dark Matter Search with Nuclear Recoils from the XENONnT Experiment
• The mass distribution in the Galactic Centre from interferometric astrometry of multiple stellar orbits
• Strong-field Gravity Tests with the Double Pulsar
• The Poor Old Heart of the Milky Way
• The mass of Beta Pictoris c from Beta Pictoris b orbital motion
• Direct discovery of the inner exoplanet in the HD206893 system. Evidence for deuterium burning in a planetary-mass companion
• The Return of the Templates: Revisiting the Galactic Center Excess with Multi-Messenger Observations
• The Open Cluster Chemical Abundances and Mapping Survey: VI. Galactic Chemical Gradient Analysis from APOGEE DR17
• A direct measurement of the distance to the Galactic center using the kinematics of bar stars
• The young stars in the Galactic Center
• Constraining particle acceleration in Sgr A* with simultaneous GRAVITY, Spitzer, NuSTAR and Chandra observations
• Multiple phase spirals suggest multiple origins in Gaia DR3
• Detecting exomoons from radial velocity measurements of self-luminous planets: application to observations of HR 7672 B and future prospects
• PSR J2222--0137. I. Improved physical parameters for the system
• First direct detection constraints on Planck-scale mass dark matter with multiple-scatter signatures using the DEAP-3600 detector
• Exploring dark matter spike distribution around the Galactic centre with stellar orbits
• Testing kinematic distances under a realistic Galactic potential
• Chemical Cartography with LAMOST and Gaia Reveal Azimuthal and Spiral Structure in the Galactic Disk
• Tracing the Milky Way warp and spiral arms with classical Cepheids
• Deep Images of the Galactic Center with GRAVITY
• Tidally induced spiral arm wraps encoded in phase space
• Where intermediate-mass black holes could hide in the Galactic Centre: A full parameter study with the S2 orbit
• Sensitivity projections for a dual-phase argon TPC optimized for light dark matter searches through the ionization channel
• The Galactic Center as a laboratory for theories of gravity and dark matter
• The period--luminosity relation for Mira variables in the Milky Way using Gaia DR3: a further distance anchor for $H_0$
• Asgard/NOTT: L-band nulling interferometry at the VLTI I. Simulating the expected high-contrast performance
• GRAVITY K-band spectroscopy of HD 206893 B: brown dwarf or exoplanet
• Mira variables in the Milky Way's nuclear stellar disc: discovery and classification
• Brightness Asymmetry of Black Hole Images as a Probe of Observer Inclination
• The Green Bank North Celestial Cap Survey. VII. 12 New Pulsar Timing Solutions
• An 86-GHz search for Pulsars in the Galactic Center with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array
• The Araucaria project: High-precision orbital parallaxes and masses of binary stars. I. VLTI/GRAVITY observations of ten double-lined spectroscopic binaries
• The extinction law in the inner $3\times 3$ deg${}^2$ of the Milky Way and the red clump absolute magnitude in the inner bar-bulge
• A Bayesian estimation of the Milky Way's circular velocity curve using Gaia DR3
• Spin-dependent sub-GeV Inelastic Dark Matter-electron scattering and Migdal effect: (I). Velocity Independent Operator
• First Constraints on WIMP-Nucleon Effective Field Theory Couplings in an Extended Energy Region From LUX-ZEPLIN
• On the Accuracy of Three-dimensional Kinematic Distances
• Effects on the local dark matter distribution due to the Large Magellanic Cloud
• A new resonance-like feature in the outer disc of the Milky Way
• Radial phase spirals in the Solar neighbourhood
• The Milky Way, Coming into Focus: Precision Astrometry Probes its Evolution, and its Dark Matter
• PSR~J1910$-$5959A: A rare gravitational laboratory for testing white dwarf models
• Fuelling the search for light dark matter-electron scattering with spherical proportional counters
• Constraints on the black-hole charges of M87* and Sagittarius A* by changing rates of photon spheres can be relaxed
• Expected insights on type Ia supernovae from LISA's gravitational wave observations
• Relativistic effects in a mildly recycled pulsar binary: PSR J1952+2630
• Radial Wave in the Galactic Disk: New Clues to Discriminate Different Perturbations
• Photometric Classification of Stars Around the Milky Way's Central Black Hole: I. Central Parsec
• A new kinematic model of the Galaxy: analysis of the stellar velocity field from Gaia Data Release 3
• Living on the edge of the Central Molecular Zone: G1.3 is the more likely candidate for gas accretion into the CMZ
• Discovery and Timing of Millisecond Pulsars with the Arecibo 327 MHz Drift-Scan Survey
• Probing the Milky Way stellar and brown dwarf initial mass function with modern microlensing observations
• Parameters of the Galactic Spiral Density Wave from Masers with Parallax Errors Less Than 10%
• 3D structure of the Milky Way out to 10 kpc from the Sun. Catalogue of large molecular clouds in the Galactic Plane
• The formation and stability of a cold disc made out of stellar winds in the Galactic Centre
• Imaging of exocomets with infrared interferometry
• Rediscovering the Milky Way with orbit superposition approach and APOGEE data I. Method validation
• The Galactic Bulge exploration IV.: RR~Lyrae stars as traces of the Galactic bar -- 3D and 5D analysis, extinction variation
• VVV catalog of ab-type RR Lyrae in the inner Galactic bulge
• The impact of gravitational lensing in the reconstruction of stellar orbits around Sgr A*
• Exomoon search with VLTI/GRAVITY around the substellar companion HD 206893 B
• Recommended conventions for reporting results from direct dark matter searches
• Measuring the Streaming motion in the Milky Way disc with Gaia EDR3 +
• The double neutron star PSR J1946+2052 I. Masses and tests of general relativity
• GaiaUnlimited: The old stellar disc of the Milky Way as traced by the Red Clump
• Timing of millisecond pulsars in NGC\,6752 -- III. On the presence of non-luminous matter in the cluster's core
• Predicted Trends in Milky Way Bulge Proper Motion Rotation Curves: future Prospects for HST and LSST
• Trigonometric parallax and proper motion of Sagittarius A* measured by VERA using the new broad-band back-end system OCTAVE-DAS
• Dynamical streams in the local stellar halo
• The S stars' zone of avoidance in the Galactic center
• First measurement of the triaxiality of the inner dark matter halo of the Milky Way
• XENONnT WIMP Search: Signal & Background Modeling and Statistical Inference
• Dark Matter Velocity Distributions for Direct Detection: Astrophysical Uncertainties are Smaller Than They Appear
• The Expanding 3 kpc Arms Are Neither Expanding nor Spiral Arms but X1 Orbits Driven by the Galactic Bar
• Astrometric exomoon detection by means of optical interferometry
• A Wide Metallicity Range for Gyr-old Stars in the Nuclear Star Cluster
• The vertex coordinates of the Galaxy's stellar systems according to the Gaia DR3 catalogue
• The outskirts of M33: Tidally induced distortions versus signatures of gas accretion
• Estimation of the Galactocentric Distance of the Sun from Cepheids Close to the Solar Circle
• Probing the Scalar WIMP-Pion Coupling with the first LUX-ZEPLIN data
• Spatial orientation and shape of the velocity ellipsoids of the Gaia DR3 giants and subgiants in the Galactic plane
• Line-of-sight mass estimator and the masses of the Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxy
• Gravitational waves from an eccentric population of primordial black holes orbiting Sgr A${}^{\star }$
• The frozen outskirts: a cold Hubble flow and the mass of the Local Group
• Variable stars in the VVV globular clusters. II. NGC6441, NGC6569, NGC6626 (M28), NGC6656 (M22), 2MASS-GC02, and Terzan10
• Neutral particle collisions near Gibbons-Maeda-Garfinkle-Horowitz-Strominger black holes after shadow observations
• On the detectability of gravitational waves from primordial black holes orbiting Sgr A*
• On the origin of the Hercules group: I. chemical signatures indicating the outer bar origin
• An MCMC Approach to the Three-dimensional Structure of the Milky Way Bulge using OGLE-IV $\delta$ Scuti Stars
• Open cluster members in APOGEE DR17 I. Dynamics and star members
• A proposal for enhancing technosignature search toward the Galactic center
• Constraints On Covariant WIMP-Nucleon Effective Field Theory Interactions from the First Science Run of the LUX-ZEPLIN Experiment
• Analytic Post-Newtonian Astrometric and Spectroscopic Models of Orbits around Black Holes
• A Kinematic History of Stellar Encounters with Beta Pictoris
• Limiting the Yukawa Gravity through the Black Hole Shadows of Sgr A* and M87*
• Challenges in focal plane and telescope calibration for High-Precision Space Astrometry
• Orbital dynamics in galactic potentials under mass transfer
• Photometric Constraints on Intermediate-mass Black Holes in the Galactic Centre
• Age and metallicity of the Milky Way's nuclear star cluster studied at 3 pc from Sagittarius A*
• Exploring black hole shadows in axisymmetric spacetimes with coordinate-independent methods and neural networks
• A Near-Infrared Extinction and Reddening Map Towards the Galactic Bulge Using UKIRT
• Long-term timing of the relativistic binary PSR J1906+0746
• Projected Sensitivity of Paleo-Detectors to Dark Matter Effective Interactions with Nuclei
• ZERNIPAX: A Fast and Accurate Zernike Polynomial Calculator in Python
• Flaremodel: An open-source Python package for one-zone numerical modelling of synchrotron sources
• PPN--spin degeneracies in mock S62-like stellar-orbit inference
• Kinematical and dynamical properties of recently discovered bulge and disc star clusters with WINERED
• 3D CMZ V: A new orbital model of our Galaxy's Center, informed by data across the electromagnetic spectrum
• Insights into the structure and kinematics of a Milky Way-like galaxy
• Impact of merger histories on the timing argument estimate of the Local Group mass
• Dynamical properties of high-[Mg/Fe] stars in the Milky Way bar region
• Shadows of generalised Hayward spacetimes : in vacuum and with plasma
• Supergiant GCIRS 22 in the Milky Way Nuclear Star Cluster: Revised alpha abundances
• How to Build an Empirical Speed Distribution for Dark Matter in the Solar Neighborhood
• Observational Signatures of Kerr Black Hole Lensing
• Galaxy rotation curve based on RGB stars from the Gaia DR3 catalogue