IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) is a Small Explorer mission by NASA and ASI, launched on December 9th 2021, dedicated to investigating X-ray polarimetry allowing angular-, time- and energy-resolved observations in the 2--8 keV energy band. IXPE is in Science Observation phase since January 2022; it comprises of three identical telescopes with grazing-incidence mirrors, each one having in the focal plane a Gas Pixel Detector (GPD). In this paper, we present a possible guideline to obtain an optimal background selection in polarimetric analysis, and a rejection strategy to remove instrumental background. This work is based on the analysis of IXPE observations, aiming to improve as much as possible the polarimetric sensitivity. In particular, the developed strategies have been applied ``as a case study'' to the IXPE observation of the 4U 0142+61 magnetar.
@article{arxiv.2302.02927,
title = {Handling Background in IXPE polarimetric data},
author = {Alessandro Di Marco and Paolo Soffitta and Enrico Costa and Riccardo Ferrazzoli and Fabio La Monaca and John Rankin and Ajay Ratheesh and Fei Xie and Luca Baldini and Ettore Del Monte and Steven R. Ehlert and Sergio Fabiani and Dawoon E. Kim and Fabio Muleri and Stephen L. O'Dell and Brian D. Ramsey and Alda Rubini and Carmelo Sgrò and Stefano Silvestri and Allyn F. Tennant and Martin C. Weisskopf},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2302.02927},
year = {2023}
}