Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T14:25:12.463Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

VLBI studies of the nutations of the earth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 August 2017

T. A. Herring
T. A. Herring*
Affiliation:
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA. 02138

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The application of very–long–baseline interferometry (VLBI) to the study of the nutations of the earth has yielded unprecedented accuracy for the experimental determination of the coefficients of the nutation series. The analysis of six years of VLBI data has yielded corrections to the coefficients of the seven largest terms in the IAU 1980 nutation series with periods of one year or less, with accuracies approaching the truncation error of this nutation series (0.1 mas). The nutation series coefficients computed from the VLBI data, and those obtained from theoretical considerations (the IAU 1980 nutation series), are in excellent agreement. The largest corrections are to the coefficients of the retrograde annual nutation [2.0 ± 0.1 mas], the prograde semiannual nutation [(0.5 - ι 0.4) ±0.1 mas], and the prograde 13.7 day nutation [−0.4 ± 0.1 mas]. (The imaginary term for the semiannual nutation represents a term 90° out–of–phase with the arguments of the nutation series.) The geophysical implications of these results are currently under active investigation. We discuss the methods used to extract the nutation information from the VLBI data, the calculations of the uncertainties of the resultant corrections to the coefficients of the nutation series, and the current research into the nutations of the earth.

Type
Geophysics
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 129: The Impact of VLBI on Astrophysics and Geophysics , 1988 , pp. 371 - 375
Copyright
Copyright © Reidel 1988 

References

Eubanks, T.M. et al., in “Proc. of the international conference on earth rotation and the terrestrial reference frame”, Ohio State University, 326–340, 1985.Google Scholar
Gwinn, C.R. et al., EOS, 65, 859, 1984.Google Scholar
Gwinn, C.R. et al., J. Geophys. Res., 91, 4755–4765, 1986.Google Scholar
Herring, T.A. et al., EOS, 64, 674, 1983.Google Scholar
Herring, T.A. et al., in “Proc. of the international conference on earth rotation and the terrestrial reference frame”, Ohio State University, 307–325, 1985.Google Scholar
Herring, T.A. et al., J. Geophys. Res., 91, 4745–4754, 1986a.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herring, T.A. et al., in “Proc. of IAU Symp. No. 128”, 1986b.Google Scholar
Himwich, W.E. et al., in “Proc. of IAU Symp. No. 128”, 1986.Google Scholar
Sasao, T. and Wahr, J.M., Geophys. J. Roy. Astr. Soc., 64, 729–746, 1981.Google Scholar
Wahr, J.M. and Sasao, T., Geophys. J. Roy. Astr. Soc., 64, 747–765, 1981.Google Scholar
Wahr, J.M. and Bergen, Z., Geophys. J. R. Astr. Soc., 87, 633–668, 1986.Google Scholar
Yoder, C.F. and Ivinis, E.R., in “Proc. of IAU Symp. No. 128”, 1986.Google Scholar
Yoder, C.F. and Ivinis, E.R., in “Proc. of IAU Symp. No. 129”, 1987.CrossRefGoogle Scholar