The modern Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) relativistic delay model, as documented in the IERS Conventions, refers to the time epoch when the signal passes one of two stations of an interferometer baseline (selected arbitrarily from the pair of stations and called the ‘reference station’ or ‘station 1’). This model consists of the previous correlation procedure used before the year 2002. However, since 2002 a new correlation procedure that produces the VLBI group delays referring to the time epoch of signal passage at the geocenter has been used. A corresponding correction to the conventional VLBI model delay has to be introduced. However, this correction has not been thoroughly presented in peer reviewed journals, and different approaches are used at the correlators to calculate the final group delays officially published in the IVS database. This may cause an inconsistency up to 6 ps for ground-based VLBI experiments between the group delay obtained by the correlator and the geometrical model delay from the IERS Conventions used in data analysis software. Moreover, a miscalculation of the signal arrival moment to the ‘reference station’ could result in a larger modelling error (up to 50 ps). The paper presents the justification of the correction due to transition between two epochs elaborated from the Lorentz transformation and the approach to model the uncertainty of the calculation of the signal arrival moment. Both changes are particularly essential for upcoming broadband technology geodetic VLBI observations.

Alfred Schild has established conditions that Lorentz transformationsmap world-vectors $(ct,x,y,z)$ with integer coordinates onto vectors of the same kind. These transformations are called integral Lorentz transformations.

This paper contains supplements to our earlier work with a new focus on group theory. To relate the results to the familiar matrix group nomenclature, we associate Lorentz transformations with matrices in $\text{SL}(2,\mathbb{C})$. We consider the lattice of subgroups of the group originated in Schild's paper and obtain generating sets for the full group and its subgroups.

Alfred Schild established conditions where Lorentz transformations map world-vectors $\left( ct,\,x,\,y,\,z \right)$ with integer coordinates onto vectors of the same kind. The problem was dealt with in the context of tensor and spinor calculus. Due to Schild’s number-theoretic arguments, the subject is also interesting when isolated from its physical background.

Schild’s paper is not easy to understand. Therefore, we first present a streamlined version of his proof which is based on the use of null vectors. Then we present a purely algebraic proof that is somewhat shorter. Both proofs rely on the properties of Gaussian integers