Influence of dynamical equatorial flattening and orientation of a triaxial core on prograde diurnal polar motion of the Earth

The noise floor of empirical models of the prograde diurnal Earth rotation could reach as low as 1 µas as shown by several recent studies. In another aspect, the differences between these empirical models with the theoretical model predictions given by International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) Conventions (2010) for certain diurnal frequencies are more than 10 µas (e.g., K 1 ). The triaxiality of the core is ignored in the theoretical model given by IERS Conventions (2010) because it is highly uncertain. To explain the differences between the empirical models and the theoretical model, we consider the possible influence of a triaxial core. We use the differences between the empirical models and the theoretical model predictions given by IERS Conventions (2010) as inputs to invert the triaxiality parameter of the core. In the inversion, we assume the ocean tide response is subjected to the admittance theory. So extra six admittance parameters are introduced to model the differences between the smooth responses inferred from the empirical models and that given by theoretical model predictions from IERS Conventions (2010). The results show that adding core triaxiality into the theoretical model could narrow the differences between the empirical models and the theoretical model at the prograde diurnal band. As for the dynamical equatorial flattening of the core, the estimates inverted based on the different empirical models are consistent within standard deviation. The results also suggest that the principal axes of the triaxial core do not coincide with the principal axes of the whole Earth.