Related papers: Calibration of the IXPE instrument
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…
Cosmic birefringence is a hypothesized parity violation in electromagnetism that predicts a frequency-independent polarization rotation as light propagates. This would rotate the light from the Cosmic Microwave Background, producing an…
Radio interferometers can measure the full polarization state of incoming waves by cross--correlating all combinations of two orthogonal polarizations at each antenna. The independent sets of electronics used to detect the two polarization…
By measuring photoelectron tracks, the gas pixel detectors of the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer satellite provide estimates of the photon detection location and its electric vector position angle (EVPA). However, imperfections in…
X-ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat) with POLarimeter Instrument in X-rays (POLIX), is India's first spacecraft dedicated to study medium energy X-ray polarisation from celestial objects. X-Ray Spectroscopy and Timing (XSPECT) instrument on…
NASA's next flagship mission, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, is a 2.4-meter observatory set to launch no later than May 2027. Roman features two instruments: the Wide Field Imager and the Coronagraph Instrument. Roman's Coronagraph…
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…
Using the formalism of Hamaker et al. (1996), I derive a method for the polarization calibration of observations made with a single radio telescope. This method is particularly appropriate for observations of pulsars, where the sign and…
Polarization leakage of foreground synchrotron emission is a critical issue in HI intensity mapping experiments. While the sought-after HI emission is unpolarized, polarized foregrounds such as Galactic and extragalactic synchrotron…
All observations by the aperture photometer (PHT-P) and the far-infrared (FIR) camera section (PHT-C) of ISOPHOT included reference measurements against stable internal fine calibration sources (FCS) to correct for temporal drifts in…
Despite several decades of multi-wavelength and multi-messenger spectral observations, Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) remain one of the big mysteries of modern astrophysics. Polarization measurements are essential to gain a more clear and complete…
This paper reviews the development status of GRAPE (the Gamma-Ray Polarimeter Experiment), a hard X-ray Compton Polarimeter. The purpose of GRAPE is to measure the polarization of hard X-rays in the 50-300 keV energy range. We are…
A new method for absolute polarimetric calibration of large telescopes is presented. The proposed method is highly accurate and is based on the calibration of a small sub-aperture, which is then extended to the full system by means of…
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the geographic South Pole instruments a gigaton of glacial Antarctic ice with over 5000 photosensors. The detector, by now running for over a decade, will be upgraded with seven new densely instrumented…
Calibration of instrumental polarization is critical for measuring polarized radio emissions from astrophysical sources to extract the magnetic field information in astrophysical, heliospheric, and terrestrial plasmas. At meter wavelengths,…
We have built and tested a compact, low-cost, but very-high-performance astronomical polarimeter based on a continuously rotating half-wave plate and a high-speed imaging detector. The polarimeter is suitable for small telescopes up to ~1 m…
The MICROSCOPE space mission aims to test the Equivalence Principle with an accuracy of $10^{-15}$. The drag-free micro-satellite will orbit around the Earth and embark a differential electrostatic accelerometer including two cylindrical…
This paper describes a concept for the high-accuracy absolute calibration of the instrumental polarization introduced by the primary mirror of a large-aperture telescope. This procedure requires a small aperture with polarization…
A mathematical framework is presented for use in the experimental determination of the polarimetric response of observatory instrumentation. Elementary principles of linear algebra are applied to model the full matrix description of the…
A calibration procedure is proposed for the ITER Radial Neutron Camera. No in-vessel calibration using external neutron sources is required: instead, it is proposed to rely on embedded sources, reference ITER pulses and cross-calibration…