Testing the Cosmological Principle: Astrometric Limits on Systemic Motion of Quasars at Different Cosmological Epochs
A sample of 60,410 bona fide optical quasars with astrometric proper motions in Gaia Early Data Release 3 and spectroscopic redshifts above 0.5 in an oval 8400 square degree area of the sky is constructed. Using orthogonal Zernike functions of polar coordinates, the proper motion fields are fitted in a weighted least-squares adjustment of the entire sample and of six equal bins of sorted redshifts. The overall fit with 37 Zernike functions reveals a statistically significant pattern, which is likely to be of instrumental origin. The main feature of this pattern is a chain of peaks and dips mostly in the R.A. component with an amplitude of 25μas yr-1. This field is subtracted from each of the six analogous fits for quasars grouped by redshifts covering the range 0.5 through 7.03, with median values of 0.72, 1.00, 1.25, 1.52, 1.83, 2.34. The resulting residual patterns are noisier, with formal uncertainties up to 8μas yr-1in the central part of the area. We detect a single high-confidence Zernike term for the R.A. proper motion components of quasars with redshifts around 1.52 representing a general gradient of 30μas yr-1over 150° on the sky. We do not find any small- or medium-scale systemic variations of the residual proper motion field as functions of redshift above the 2.5σsignificance level.
- Research Organization:
- US Department of Energy (USDOE), Washington, DC (United States). Office of Science, Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- OSTI ID:
- 1983322
- Journal Information:
- The Astrophysical Journal. Letters, Journal Name: The Astrophysical Journal. Letters Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 927; ISSN 2041-8205
- Publisher:
- IOP PublishingCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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