Related papers: Balloon-borne gamma-ray polarimetry
The POLAR detector is a space based Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) polarimeter with a wide field of view, which covers almost half the sky. The instrument uses Compton scattering of gamma rays on a plastic scintillator hodoscope to measure the…
Future cosmology space missions will concentrate on measuring the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background, which potentially carries invaluable information about the earliest phases of the evolution of our universe. Such ambitious…
Sensitive wide-field observations of polarized thermal emission from interstellar dust grains will allow astronomers to address key outstanding questions about the life cycle of matter and energy driving the formation of stars and the…
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…
Polarimetric measurements, especially if extended at high energy, are expected to provide important insights into the mechanisms underlying the acceleration of relativistic particles in jets. In a previous work we have shown that the…
Strong magnetic fields, synchrotron emission, and Compton scattering are omnipresent in compact celestial X-ray sources. Emissions in the X-ray energy band are consequently expected to be linearly polarized. X-ray polarimetry provides a…
The launch of the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), the first space-based polarimeter since 1978, offers a two order of magnitude improvement to the measurement of X-ray polarisation than its predecessor OSO-8, offering…
Since the birth of X-ray astronomy, spectral, spatial and timing observation improved dramatically, procuring a wealth of information on the majority of the classes of the celestial sources. Polarimetry, instead, remained basically…
EBEX is a balloon-borne polarimeter designed to measure the intensity and polarization of the cosmic microwave background radiation. The measurements would probe the inflationary epoch that took place shortly after the big bang and would…
Relativistic jets are collimated outflows with speeds close to light speed, which are associated with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), active galactic nuclei (AGNs), and so on. This article mainly overviews recent developments of polarimetric…
Photons preferentially Compton scatter perpendicular to the plane of polarisation. This property can be exploited to design instruments to measure the linear polarisation of hard X-rays ($\sim$10 - 100 keV). Photons may undergo two…
We present modelling of X-ray polarisation spectra emerging from the two competing scenarios that are proposed to explain the broad Fe K{\alpha} line in the Seyfert 1 galaxy MCG-6-30-15. The polarisation signature of complex absorption is…
The POEMMA-Balloon with Radio (PBR) is a NASA mission designed to study Ultra-High-Energy Cosmic Rays and Very-High-Energy Neutrinos from a balloon platform. Serving as a precursor to the planned POEMMA satellite mission, PBR will be…
We discuss MAXIPOL, a bolometric balloon-borne experiment designed to measure the E-mode polarization anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) on angular scales of 10 arcmin to 2 degrees. MAXIPOL is the first CMB…
The POLAR-2 Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) Polarimetry mission is a follow-up to the successful POLAR mission. POLAR collected six months of data in 2016-2017 on board the Tiangong-2 Chinese Space laboratory. From a polarization study on 14 GRBs,…
Since the birth of X-ray Astronomy, spectacular advances have been seen in the imaging, spectroscopic and timing studies of the hot and violent X-ray Universe, and further leaps forward are expected in the future. On the other hand,…
The development of micropixel gas detectors, capable to image tracks produced in a gas by photoelectrons, makes possible to perform polarimetry of X-ray celestial sources in the focus of grazing incidence X-ray telescopes. HXMT is a mission…
The upcoming launch of the first space based X-ray polarimeter in $\sim 40$ years will provide powerful new diagnostic information to study accreting compact objects. In particular, analysis of rapid variability of the polarisation degree…
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…
The development of micropixel gas detectors, capable to image tracks produced in a gas by photoelectrons, makes possible to perform polarimetry of X-ray celestial sources in the focus of grazing incidence X-ray telescopes. HXMT is a mission…