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We present the results of first dual-beam observations with VERA (VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry). The first dual-beam observations of a pair of H 2 O maser sources W49N and OH43.8-0.1 have been carried out on 2002 May 29 and July 23, and fringes of H 2 O maser lines at 22 GHz have been successfully detected. While the residual fringe phases of both sources show rapid variations over 360 degree due to the atmospheric fluctuation, the differential phase between the two sources remains constant for 1 hour with r.m.s. of 8 degree, demonstrating that the atmospheric phase fluctuation is removed effectively by the dual-beam phase referencing. The analysis based on Allan standard deviation reveals that the differential phase is mostly dominated by white phase noise, and the coherence function calculated from the differential phase shows that after phase referencing the fringe visibility can be integrated for arbitrarily long time. These results demonstrate VERA's high capability of phase referencing, indicating that VERA is a promising tool for phase referencing VLBI astrometry at 10 µas-level accuracy.1

We present the results of multiepoch VLBI observations for a 6.7 GHz methanol maser toward the UC H II region of W 3(OH) with Japanese VLBI Network (JVN). Based on phase-referencing VLBI astrometry, we derived the trigonometric annual parallax to be 0.598$\ \pm\ $0.067 mas, corresponding to a distance of 1.67$^{+0.21}_{-0.17}$ kpc. This is the first detection of parallax for a 6.7 GHz methanol maser with JVN, and demonstrates that JVN/VERA is capable of conducting VLBI astrometry for 6.7 GHz methanol maser sources within few kpc from the Sun. Based on in-beam mapping of the W 3(OH) methanol maser, we also measured the internal proper motions of its 6.7 GHz methanol maser for the first time. The internal proper motions basically show north–south expansion with a velocity of few km s$^{-1}$, being similar to OH masers. The spatial distribution and the internal proper motions of 6.7 GHz methanol masers suggest a rotating and expanding torus structure surrounding the UC H II region.

Faraday tomography is thought to be a powerful tool to explore cosmic magnetic field. Broadband radio polarimetric data is essential to ensure the quality of Faraday tomography, but such data is not easy to obtain because of radio frequency interferences (RFIs). In this paper, we investigate optimum frequency coverage of Faraday tomography so as to explore Faraday rotation measure (RM) due to the intergalactic magnetic field (IGMF) in filaments of galaxies. We adopt a simple model of the IGMF and estimate confidence intervals of the model parameters using the Fisher information matrix. We find that meaningful constraints for RM due to the IGMF are available with data at multiple narrowbands which are scattered over the ultrahigh frequency (UHF, 300 MHz -3000 MHz). The optimum frequency depends on the Faraday thickness of the Milky Way foreground. These results are obtained for a wide brightness range of the background source including fast radio bursts (FRBs). We discuss the relation between the polarized-intensity spectrum and the optimum frequency.Key words: intergalactic medium -large-scale structure of universe -magnetic fields -polarization * Corresponding author: takuya.akahori@nao.ac.jp et al. 2018 for reviews); synchrotron intensity, its linearpolarization vector, and Faraday rotation measure (RM) provide us with properties of magnetic field in galaxies and AGN jets, and they reveal detailed structures of magnetized plasma such as the interstellar medium (ISM) and intergalactic medium (IGM). Cosmic magnetism is one of the key sciences for the Square Kilometre Array (SKA)

We have developed a broadband VLBI (very long baseline interferometry) system inspired by the concept of the VLBI Global Observing System (VGOS). The new broadband VLBI system was implemented in the Kashima 34 m antenna and in two transportable stations utilizing 2.4 m diameter antennas. The transportable stations have been developed as a tool for intercontinental frequency comparison but are equally useful for geodesy. To enable practical use of such small VLBI stations in intercontinental VLBI, we have developed the procedure of node-hub style VLBI: In joint observation with a large, high sensitivity ‘hub’ antenna, the closure delay relation provides a virtual delay observable between ‘node’ stations. This overcomes the limited sensitivity of the small diameter node antennas, while error sources associated with large diameter antennas, such as gravitational deformation and delay changes in necessarily long signal cables, are eliminated. We show that this scheme does not result in an increased sensitivity to radio source structure if one side of the baseline triangle is kept short. We have performed VLBI experiments utilizing this approach over both short range and intercontinental distance. This article describes the system components, signal processing procedure, experiment, and results in terms of baseline repeatability. Our measurements reveal signatures of structure effects in the correlation amplitude of several of the observed radio sources. We present a model of the frequency-dependent source size for 1928+738 derived from correlation amplitude data observed in four frequency bands.