Related papers: Probing magnetars magnetosphere through X-ray pola…
Magnetars are young and highly magnetized neutron stars which display a wide array of X-ray activity including short bursts, large outbursts, giant flares and quasi-periodic oscillations, often coupled with interesting timing behavior…
Planetary plasma and magnetic field environments can be studied by in situ measurements or by remote sensing. While the former provide precise information about plasma behaviour, instabilities and dynamics on local scales, the latter offers…
The high-energy sources known as anomalous X-ray pulsars (AXPs) and soft gamma-ray repeaters (SGRs) are well explained as magnetars: isolated neutron stars powered by their own magnetic energy. After explaining why it is generally believed…
Weakly magnetized neutron stars (WMNS) are complicated sources with challenging phenomenology. For decades, they have been studied via spectrometry and timing. It has been established that the spectrum of WMNSs consists of several…
X-ray polarimetry, sometimes alone, and sometimes coupled to spectral and temporal variability measurements and to imaging, allows a wealth of physical phenomena in astrophysics to be studied. X-ray polarimetry investigates the acceleration…
The Lightweight Asymmetry and Magnetism Probe (LAMP) is a micro-satellite mission concept dedicated for astronomical X-ray polarimetry and is currently under early phase study. It consists of segmented paraboloidal multilayer mirrors with a…
Light scattered off particles can become linearly polarized. Stars surrounded by oblique, co-rotating envelopes are therefore expected to manifest periodic linear polarimetric variations. The electron scattering magnetospheres of magnetic…
Most studies of the pulsar magnetosphere have assumed a pure magnetic dipole in flat spacetime. However, recent work suggests that the effects of general relativity are in fact of vital importance and that realistic pulsar magnetic fields…
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…
Weakly magnetized neutron stars in X-ray binaries show complex phenomenology with several spectral components that can be associated with the accretion disk, boundary and/or spreading layer, a corona, and a wind. Spectroscopic information…
The investigation of the Earth ionosphere both in a quiet and a disturbed states is still desirable. Despite recent progress in its modeling and in estimating the electron concentration along the line of sight by GPS signals, the impact of…
In this document, we describe the scientific potential of blazar observations with a X-ray polarimetry mission like GEMS (Gravity and Extreme Magnetism SMEX). We describe five blazar science investigations that such a mission would enable:…
We report the first results from an X-ray polarimeter with a micropattern gas proportional counter using an amorphous silicon active matrix readout. With 100% polarized X-rays at 4.5 keV, we obtain a modulation factor of 0.33 +/- 0.03,…
Neutron stars provide ideal astrophysical laboratories for probing new physics beyond the Standard Model. If axions exist, photons can develop linear polarization during photon-axion conversion in the magnetic field of a neutron star. We…
Some of the most sensitive methods of measuring magnetic fields utilize interactions of resonant light with atomic vapor. Recent developments in this vibrant field are improving magnetometers in many traditional areas such as measurement of…
X-ray flares, lasting for $\sim 100 - 1000$ s in the X-ray band, are often observed following gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). The physical origin of X-ray flares is still unknown merely with the temporal/spectral information. On the other hand,…
Angular- or $k$-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy in the soft X-ray range gives access to the bulk electronic structure of materials. Here this technique is extended to the spin degree of freedom. A non-magnetic material (tungsten) was…
Isolated Neutron Stars are known to be endowed with extreme magnetic fields, whose maximum intensity ranges from 10^12 to 10^15 G, which permeates their magnetospheres. Their surrounding environment is also strongly magnetised, especially…
We review the recent advances in the pulsar high-energy $\gamma$-ray observation and the electrodynamics of the pulsar magnetospheres from the early vacuum model to the recent plasma-filled models by the numerical simulations. The numerical…
We explore properties of the radio-frequency atomic magnetometer, specifically its sensitivity to the polarisation of an oscillating magnetic field. This aspect can be particularly relevant to configurations where the sensor monitors fields…