Related papers: Scientific Prospects for Hard X-ray Polarimetry

We report on the design and estimated performance of a balloon-borne hard X-ray polarimeter called HX-POL. The experiment uses a combination of Si and Cadmium Zinc Telluride detectors to measure the polarization of 50 keV-400 keV X-rays…

The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer is an X-ray observatory measuring the X-ray polarization in the 2-8 keV energy range. Highly sensitive to the system's geometry, X-ray polarization is a unique method to probe the structure of X-ray…

The X-ray Polarization Probe (XPP) is a second generation X-ray polarimeter following up on the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE). The XPP will offer true broadband polarimetery over the wide 0.2-60 keV bandpass in addition to…

Thanks to IXPE , the X-ray spectro-polarimeter launched at the end of 2021, X-ray polarimetry has finally become an extraordinary tool in investigating the physics of accretion in low mass X-ray binaries. Similarly to what happened with…

Polarimetry provides key physical information on the properties of interacting binary systems, sometimes difficult to obtain by any other type of observation. Indeed, radiation processes such as scattering by free electrons in the hot…

Some tests of fundamental physics - the equation of state at supra-nuclear densities, the metric in strong gravity, the effect of magnetic fields above the quantum critical value - can only be measured using compact astrophysical objects:…

Measurements of the angular momentum (spin) of astrophysical black holes are extremely important, as they provide information on the black hole formation and evolution. We present simulated observations of a X-ray binary system with the…

The polarisation of x-ray photons can be determined by measuring the direction of emission of a K-shell photoelectron. Effective exploitation of this effect below 10 keV would allow development of a highly sensitive x-ray polarimeter…

X-ray polarimetry offers a unique window into neutron star physics and can provide answers to questions that cannot otherwise be probed. The up-and-coming REDSoX sounding rocket mission will be the first experiment equipped with a detector…

X-ray polarimetry is now providing a new way to look at the high energy sky. The addition of two observables, polarization fraction and angle, reveals crucial new information on the structure of accretion flows and magnetic fields in…

This dissertation elaborates on X-ray polarisation features of astrophysical environments near accreting black holes. Although the work was originally assigned to supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei, the results are also…

The energy range of hard X-rays is a key waveband to the study of high energy processes in celestial objects, but still remains poorly explored. In contrast to direct imaging methods used in the low energy X-ray and high energy gamma-ray…

Since the initial exploration of soft gamma-ray sky in the 60's, high-energy celestial sources have been mainly characterized through imaging, spectroscopy and timing analysis. Despite tremendous progress in the field, the radiation…

X-ray polarimetry missions like IXPE will be able to measure for the first time the polarization properties of accreting, weakly magnetized neutron stars in Low Mass X-ray Binaries. In this work we present simulations of the expected X-ray…

X-ray polarization should provide new probes of magnetic field geometry and acceleration physics near the base of blazar jets, but near-future missions will have limited sensitivity. We thus use existing lower energy data and X-ray…

We review the basic principles of X-ray polarimetry and current detector technologies based on the photoelectric effect, Bragg reflection, and Compton scattering. Recent technological advances in high-spatial-resolution gas-filled X-ray…

We argue that measurements of X-ray polarization using the recently launched Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer will answer many open questions about magnetars in particular the physical state of their surfaces, whether vacuum birefringence…

Observations of Galactic black hole sources are traditionally done in the classical X-ray range (2 -- 10 keV) due to sensitivity constraints. Most of the accretion power, however, is radiated above 10 keV and the study of these sources in…

X-ray astronomy is closely related to the study of black hole sources. The discovery that some unseen objects, more massive than any degenerate star, emit huge amounts of X-rays helped accept the concept that back holes are present in X-ray…

We present here a summary of the scientific goals behind the Gravity and Extreme Magnetism SMEX (GEMS) X-ray polarimetry mission's black hole (BH) observing program. The primary targets can be divided into two classes: stellar-mass galactic…