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Polarization measurements of the gamma-ray component of transient sources are of great scientific interest, they are however, also highly challenging. This is due to the typical low signal to noise and the potential for significant…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2023-04-05 Merlin Kole , Jianchao Sun

POLAR-2, the successor of the POLAR experiment aboard China's Tiangong-2 space lab, is set to be deployed on the China Space Station. The POLAR-2 mission aims to conducting high-precision polarization measurements of high-energy transients…

Gamma-Ray Bursts are among the most powerful events in the Universe. Despite half a century of observations of these transient sources, many open questions remain about their nature. Polarization measurements of the GRB prompt emission have…

Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are among the most energetic events in the Universe. Despite over 50 years of research and measurements their prompt emission remains poorly understood, with key questions surrounding the structure of relativistic…

The POLAR-2 mission consists of 3 instruments designed with the combined aim of producing a deeper understanding of Gamma-Ray Bursts. To achieve this, POLAR-2 relies on polarisation measurements and, for the first time will provide these…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2025-11-10 Merlin Kole , Nicolas de Angelis , Jiang He , Hongbang Liu , Jianchao Sun , Fei Xie , Jimmy Zaid

Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) are the strongest explosions in the universe which might be associated with creation of black holes. Magnetic field structure and burst dynamics may influence polarization of the emitted gamma-rays. Precise…

Despite over 50 years of research, many open questions remain about the origin and nature of GRBs. Polarization measurements of the prompt emission of these extreme phenomena have long been thought to be the key to answering a range of…

In the first half year of operation the satellite borne POLAR instrument detected a total of 55 Gamma-Ray Bursts about 10 of which were bright enough to allow for detailed polarization studies, thereby forming the start of the first…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2018-04-16 Merlin Kole

The POLAR detector is a space based Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) polarimeter sensitive in the 15-500 keV energy range. Apart from its main scientific goal as a Gamma-Ray Burst polarimeter it is also able to detect photons from pulsars in orbit. By…

POLAR is a compact polarimeter dedicated to measure the polarization of GRBs between 50-300 keV. The light collection of 200*6*6mm3 plastic bars has been simulated and optimized in order to get uniform response to x-rays at different points…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2009-07-17 Yongwei Dong , Yanguo Li , Bobing Wu , Yongjie Zhang , Shuangnan Zhang

The Low Energy Polarization Detector (LPD) is a key component of the next-generation large-scale Gamma-Ray Burst polarimeter, POLAR-2. It is designed for polarization observations of transient sources in the soft X-ray energy range with a…

X-Calibur is a balloon-borne telescope that measures the polarization of high-energy X-rays in the 15--50keV energy range. The instrument makes use of the fact that X-rays scatter preferentially perpendicular to the polarization direction.…

In spite of extensive observations and numerous theoretical studies in the past decades several key questions related with Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRB) emission mechanisms are still to be answered. Precise detection of the GRB polarization…

Since their discoveries in 1967, Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) continue to be one of the most researched objects in astrophysics. Multi-messenger observations are key to gaining a deeper understanding of these events. In order to facilitate such…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2023-09-06 Merlin Kole , Gilles Koziol , David Droz

BaR-SPOrt (Balloon-borne Radiometers for Sky Polarisation Observations) is an experiment to measure the linearly polarized emission of sky patches at 32 and 90 GHz with sub-degree angular resolution. It is equipped with high sensitivity…

Polarization measurements in the X-ray and gamma-ray energy range can provide crucial information on massive compact objects such as black holes and neutron stars. The Polarized Gamma-ray Observer (PoGO) is a new balloon-borne instrument…

POLAR-2 is a next-generation space astronomy platform led by China, with its core scientific objective focused on high-precision polarization measurements of gamma-ray bursts. As one of its key payloads, the Low-energy Polarization Detector…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2025-11-25 Li-rong Xie , Shi-Qiang Zhou , Di-Fan Yi , Huan-Bo Feng , Zhu-Ke Feng , Dong Wang , Chao-song Gao , En-Wei Liang , Xiang-Ming Sun , Hong-Bang Liu

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…

While the scientific potential of high-energy X-ray and gamma-ray polarimetry has long been recognized, measuring the polarization of high-energy photons is challenging. To date, there has been very few significant detections from an…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2023-04-05 Denis Bernard , Tanmoy Chattopadhyay , Fabian Kislat , Nicolas Produit

Polarimetric observations of celestial sources in the hard X-ray band stand to provide new information on emission mechanisms and source geometries. PoGO+ is a Compton scattering polarimeter (20-150 keV) optimised for the observation of the…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2017-03-23 M. Chauvin , M. Friis , M. Jackson , T. Kawano , M. Kiss , V. Mikhalev , N. Ohashi , T. Stana , H. Takahashi , M. Pearce