A Hierarchical Bayesian Differential Calibration of the Gaia DR3 Parallax Zero Point Using Galactic Globular Clusters
Globular clusters (GCs) occupy a broad range of stellar colors and magnitudes while sharing nearly the same distance. Gaia Data Release 3 parallaxes retain systematic zero-point residual variations for GCs, even after the correction by the widely used standard correction model (L21). We derive an empirical residual correction by the Hierarchical Bayesian Model, separating cluster-level offsets from the differential information carried by the member sequences. We first evaluate the L21 baseline at a fixed reference color, which assigns the remaining color-dependent correction to the residual model. Then we model the residual zero point, $δZ(G,ν_{\rm eff})$, with B-splines functions in color and magnitude--color interaction terms. The uncorrected cluster residuals exhibit a negative offset of approximately $25$--$40~μ{\rm as}$. The L21 baseline removes most of this offset but leaves coherent color- and magnitude-dependent structure. Applying the residual model brings the mean residuals close to zero, especially across most of the sampled color range. In five-fold cross-validation that excludes entire clusters from training, the correction modestly reduces the magnitude- and color-trend RMS relative to the L21 correction. The resulting model therefore provides a differential refinement of the \textit{Gaia} DR3 parallax zero-point within the calibrated domain for GCs, rather than an independent determination of its absolute value.
Authors
- S. Liao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9346-0211)
- Zhaoxiang Qi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8402-3220)
- Qiqi Wu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-1404-0337)
- Ye Ding (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-7185-9549)
- Keyu Zhu
- Qi Xu
Publication Details
- Journal
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Published
- 2026-10-27
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2610.36543
- Primary Topic
- Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
- Type
- preprint