Astrometry of H2O Masers in Nearby Star-Forming Regions with VERA. IV. L 1448 C

We have carried out multi-epoch VLBI observations with VERA (VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry) of 22 GHz H2O masers associated with a Class 0 protostar, L 1448 C, in the Perseus molecular cloud. The maser features trace the base of a collimated bipolar jet driven by one of the infrared counter parts of L 1448 C, named as L 1448 C(N) or L 1448-mm A. We detected possible evidence for apparent acceleration and precession of the jet according to the three-dimensional velocity structure. Based on phase-referencing VLBI astrometry, we successfully detected an annual parallax of the H2O maser in L 1448 C to be 4.31 +/- 0.33 milliarcseconds (mas), which corresponds to a distance of 232 18 pc from the Sun. The present result is in good agreement with that of another H2O maser source, NGC 1333 SVS 13, in the Perseus molecular cloud, 235 pc. It is also consistent with the photometric distance, 220 pc. Thus, the distance to the western part of the Perseus molecular cloud complex would be constrained to be about 235 pc, rather than a larger value, 300 pc, previously reported.