The Instrument of the Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer

Soffitta, Paolo; Baldini, Luca; Bellazzini, Ronaldo; Costa, Enrico; Latronico, Luca; Muleri, Fabio; Del Monte, Ettore; Fabiani, Sergio; Minuti, Massimo; Pinchera, Michele; Sgro’, Carmelo; Spandre, Gloria; Trois, Alessio; Amici, Fabrizio; Andersson, Hans; Attina’, Primo; Bachetti, Matteo; Barbanera, Mattia; Borotto, Fabio; Brez, Alessandro; Brienza, Daniele; Caporale, Ciro; Cardelli, Claudia; Carpentiero, Rita; Castellano, Simone; Castronuovo, Marco; Cavalli, Luca; Cavazzuti, Elisabetta; Ceccanti, Marco; Centrone, Mauro; Ciprini, Stefano; Citraro, Saverio; D’Amico, Fabio; D’Alba, Elisa; Di Cosimo, Sergio; Di Lalla, Niccolo’; Di Marco, Alessandro; Di Persio, Giuseppe; Donnarumma, Immacolata; Evangelista, Yuri; Ferrazzoli, Riccardo; Hayato, Asami; Kitaguchi, Takao; La Monaca, Fabio; Lefevre, Carlo; Loffredo, Pasqualino; Lorenzi, Paolo; Lucchesi, Leonardo; Magazzu, Carlo; Maldera, Simone; Manfreda, Alberto; Mangraviti, Elio; Marengo, Marco; Matt, Giorgio; Mereu, Paolo; Morbidini, Alfredo; Mosti, Federico; Nakano, Toshio; Nasimi, Hikmat; Negri, Barbara; Nenonen, Seppo; Nuti, Alessio; Orsini, Leonardo; Perri, Matteo; Pesce-Rollins, Melissa; Piazzolla, Raffaele; Pilia, Maura; Profeti, Alessandro; Puccetti, Simonetta; Rankin, John; Ratheesh, Ajay; Rubini, Alda; Santoli, Francesco; Sarra, Paolo; Scalise, Emanuele; Sciortino, Andrea; Tamagawa, Toru; Tardiola, Marcello; Tobia, Antonino; Vimercati, Marco; Xie, Fei

doi:10.3847/1538-3881/ac19b0

The Instrument of the Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer

Journal Article · Thu Oct 21 00:00:00 EDT 2021 · The Astronomical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ac19b0· OSTI ID:1846609

^[1]; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; Minuti, Massimo; Pinchera, Michele; ; Spandre, Gloria; Trois, Alessio; ; Andersson, Hans; Attina’, Primo; ; Barbanera, Mattia; Borotto, Fabio; Brez, Alessandro more »

Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali, Rome (Italy); IXPE Collaboration, et al.; SLAC

While X-ray spectroscopy, timing, and imaging have improved much since 1962 when the first astronomical nonsolar source was discovered, especially wi the launch of the Newton/X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission, Rossi/X-ray Timing Explorer, and Chandra/Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility, the progress of X-ray polarimetry has been meager. This is in part due to the lack of sensitive polarization detectors, which in turn is a result of the fate of approved missions and because celestial X-ray sources appear less polarized than expected. Only one positive measurement has been available until now: the Orbiting Solar Observatory measured the polarization of the Crab Nebula in the 1970s. The advent of microelectronics techniques has allowed for designing a detector based on the photoelectric effect of gas in an energy range where the optics are efficient at focusing in X-rays. Here we describe the instrument, which is the major contribution of the Italian collaboration to the Small Explorer mission called IXPE, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, which will launch in late 2021. The instrument is composed of three detector units based on this technique and a detector service unit. Three mirror modules provided by Marshall Space Flight Center focus X-rays onto the detectors. We show the technological choices, their scientific motivation, and results from the calibration of the instrument. IXPE will perform imaging, timing, and energy-resolved polarimetry in the 2–8 keV energy band opening this window of X-ray astronomy to tens of celestial sources of almost all classes.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)

Contributing Organization:: IXPE Collaboration

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-76SF00515

OSTI ID:: 1846609

Journal Information:: The Astronomical Journal, Journal Name: The Astronomical Journal Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 162; ISSN 0004-6256

Publisher:: IOP PublishingCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
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