Bayesian polarization calibration and imaging in very long baseline interferometry

Abstract

Extracting polarimetric information from very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) data is demanding but vital for understanding the synchrotron radiation process and the magnetic fields of celestial objects, such as active galactic nuclei (AGNs). However, conventional CLEAN-based calibration and imaging methods provide suboptimal resolution without uncertainty estimation of calibration solutions, while requiring manual steering from an experienced user. We present a Bayesian polarization calibration and imaging method using Bayesian imaging software resolve for VLBI data sets, that explores the posterior distribution of antenna-based gains, polarization leakages, and polarimetric images jointly from pre-calibrated data. We demonstrate our calibration and imaging method with observations of the quasar 3C273 with the VLBA at 15 GHz and the blazar OJ287 with the GMVA+ALMA at 86 GHz. Compared to the CLEAN method, our approach provides physically realistic images that satisfy positivity of flux and polarization constraints and can reconstruct complex source structures composed of various spatial scales. Our method systematically accounts for calibration uncertainties in the final images and provides uncertainties of Stokes images and calibration solutions. The automated Bayesian approach for calibration and imaging will be able to obtain high-fidelity polarimetric images using high-quality data from next-generation radio arrays. The pipeline developed for this work is publicly available.