English

Sco X-1 as seen by IXPE

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2025-10-15 v1

Abstract

The X-ray polarization of Sco X-1 was measured for the first time with very high significance by the Imaging X-ray Polarimeter Explorer (IXPE). A polarization degree of 1.0% ±\pm 0.2% at a PA of 8{\deg} ±\pm 6{\deg} at 90% confidence level (CL) in the 2-8 keV energy band is obtained, while the source was in its soft state with short flaring periods. The source state was determined by a strictly simultaneous X-ray observation campaign jointly with IXPE, which involved NICER, NuSTAR, and Insight-HXMT, allowing for a broad-band spectrum characterization and study of quasiperiodic oscillations. The spectropolarimetric analysis yielded a polarization of <3.2% for the accretion disk and a polarization of 1.3% ±\pm 0.4% for the hard Comptonized component. A constraint on the polarization of the reflection component, modeled using relxillNS, is obtained. All the results about the polarization degree match the theoretical expectations, while the polarization angle of 8{\deg} +/- 6{\deg} at 90% CL shows a rotation of 46{\deg} ±\pm 9{\deg} with respect to the measured position angle of the radio jet and previous marginal results by PolarLight. This may suggest a variation in the polarization angle related to the source state, which is linked to the variation of corona geometry as reported by IXPE observations of Z sources, or possibly to relativistic precession.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2504.07181,
  title  = {Sco X-1 as seen by IXPE},
  author = {Fabio La Monaca},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.07181},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

Talk given at Frontier Research in Astrophysics, IV 09-14 September 2024 Mondello, Palermo, Italy. Accepted to be published in PoS

R2 v1 2026-06-28T22:52:47.289Z