FREQUENCY STANDARD AND CLOCK SYSTEM IN VLBI

In this paper, we describe a principle of the atomic frequency standard and clock system in VLBI(Very Long Baseline Interferometry). The hydrogen maser is a usual VLBI standard. During VLBI observations, signals emitted by distant sources of radio frequency energy(quasars) are received and recorded at several antennas. At each antenna(VLBI station), a very stable frequency standard(hydrogen maser) provides a reference signal which enables time-tagging to the quasar signals as they are being recorded on magnetic tapes or hard-disk modules. For each VLBl experiment, correlation of the time-tagged recorded information between the participating antennas is used to yield the arrival time differences of any specific quasar radio wave between the antennas. These time differences are used to calculate the relative antennas to each other. In this paper, we also introduce the KVN(Korean VLBI Network) atomic frequency standard and clock system.

VLBI의 기준 주파수와 시각 동기 시스템