Probing the precise location of the radio core in the TeV blazar Mrk 501 with VERA at 43 GHz

We investigate the position of the radio core in a blazar by multi-epoch astrometric observations at 43 GHz. Using the VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry (VERA), we have conducted four adjacent observations in 2011 February and another four in 2011 October, and succeeded in measuring the position of the radio core in the TeV blazar Mrk 501 relative to a distant compact quasar NRAO 512. During our observations, we find that (1) there is no positional change within ∼0.2 mas or ∼2.0 pc de-projected with ±1 σ error for the weighted-mean phase-referenced positions of the Mrk 501 core relative to NRAO 512 over four adjacent days, and (2) there is an indication of position change for the 3C 345 core relative to NRAO 512. By applying our results to the standard internal shock model for blazars, we constrain the bulk Lorenz factors of the ejecta.