Related papers: X-ray Polarimetry - a Tool for the Galactic center…
The Galactic center (GC) holds the closest-to-Earth supermassive black hole (SMBH), which makes it the best laboratory to study the close environment of extremely massive compact objects. Polarimetry is sensitive to geometry of the source,…
Despite past panchromatic observations of the innermost part of the Milky Way, the overall structure of the Galactic Centre (GC) remains enigmatic in terms of geometry. In this paper, we aim to show how polarimetry can probe the…
Active galactic nuclei (AGN) produce the highest intrinsic luminosities in the Universe from within a compact region. The central engine is thought to be powered by accretion onto a supermassive black hole. A fraction of this huge release…
X-ray polarimetry is a fine tool to probe the accretion geometry and physical processes operating in the proximity of compact objects, black holes and neutron stars. Recent discoveries made by the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer put our…
Due to the compactness active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are still unresolved with optical observations. However, structure and physical conditions of the matter in their central parts are especially important to study the processes of the…
The center of the Milky Way Galaxy hosts a $\sim$4 million solar mass black hole (Sgr A$^*$) that is currently very quiescent with a luminosity many orders of magnitude below those of active galactic nuclei. Reflection of X-rays from Sgr…
In astronomy there are basically four kinds of observations to extract the information carried by electromagnetic radiation: photometry, imaging, spectroscopy and polarimetry. By optimal exploitation of the first three techniques, X-ray…
X-ray polarimetry promises to give qualitatively new information about high-energy sources. Examples of interesting source classes are binary black hole systems, rotation and accretion powered neutron stars, Microquasars, Active Galactic…
Polarimetry remains a largely unexploited technique in observational X-ray astronomy which could provide insight in the study of the strong gravity and magnetic fields at the core of the Constellation-X observational program. Adding a…
An extensive theoretical literature predicts that X-ray Polarimetry can directly determine relevant physical and geometrical parameters of astrophysical sources, and discriminate between models further than allowed by spectral and timing…
This white paper highlights compact object and fundamental physics science opportunities afforded by high-throughput broadband (0.1-60 keV) X-ray polarization observations. X-ray polarimetry gives new observables with geometric information…
Polarimetry is widely considered a powerful observational technique in X-ray astronomy, useful to enhance our understanding of the emission mechanisms, geometry and magnetic field arrangement of many compact objects. However, the lack of…
X-ray Polarimetry is almost as old as X-ray Astronomy. Since the first discovery of X-ray sources theoretical analysis suggested that a high degree of linear polarization could be expected due either to the, extremely non thermal, emission…
Polarization is one of the fundamental natures of electromagnetic radiation. The detection of polarization or polarized photons from distant X-ray radiating systems (such as X-ray binaries (XBs), active galactic nuclei (AGN), pulsars, and…
In the past decade high resolution measurements in the infrared employing adaptive optics imaging on 10m telescopes have allowed determining the three dimensional orbits stars within ten light hours of the compact radio source at the center…
Polarimetric study in the UV and optical has been one of the keys to reveal the structure and nature of active galactic nuclei (AGN). Combined with the HST's high spatial resolution, it has directly confirmed the predicted scattering…
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…
X-ray astronomy allows study of objects which may be associated with compact objects, i.e. neutron stars or black holes, and also may contain strong magnetic fields. Such objects are categorically non-spherical, and likely non-circular when…
X-ray polarization is a powerful tool to investigate the geometry of accreting material around black holes, allowing independent measurements of the black hole spin and orientation of the innermost parts of the accretion disk. We perform…
The study of anomalous electromagnetic emission in the sky is the basis of indirect searches for dark matter. It is also a powerful tool to constrain the radiative decay of active neutrinos. Until now, quantitative analyses have focused on…