Determining gravity potential difference via VLBI time comparisons

VLBI technique plays important role in both astronomy and geodesy due its fantastic ability to determine the position of celestial bodies and the length of baseline on Earth. Moreover it also presents excellent work on time comparisons between atomic clocks located in remote positions where optical fiber links are not accessible. Due to its high reliability and stability, the information of Earth’s gravity field can be extracted from VLBI time comparisons in the framework of general relativity. In this study, we provide a formulation to determine the gravity potential difference by VLBI time comparisons. In fact the precision of the estimated gravity potential depends on the performance of participated clocks and the accuracy of time comparison technique. Thus we present simulation experiments using clocks with 10^-16@1d stability and broadband VLBI observation and determine gravity potential difference within a VLBI network around world with 10 m²/s² precision which is equivalent to 1 m in height. The results could be greatly improved using optical atomic clocks with much higher stabilities. Furthermore it can be applied to height transfer across oceans and unifying the height system. This study is supported by the National Natural Science Foundations of China (NSFC) under Grants 42030105, 41721003, 41804012, 41631072, 41874023, and Space Station Project (2020)228.