Related papers: Astrophysical X-Ray Polarization
The polarization state of the optical electromagnetic field lying several nanometers above complex dielectric structures reveals the intricate light-matter interaction that occurs in this near-field zone. This information can only be…
Accretion onto compact objects plays a central role in high energy astrophysics. In these environments, both general relativistic and plasma effects may have significant impacts upon the spectral and polarimetric properties of the accretion…
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…
The development of the first X-ray polarimeter, based on the photoelectric effect 20 years ago and implemented thanks to advances in gas amplification structures and readout techniques, had a significant impact in opening a new window for…
Ultraluminous X-ray binaries have challenged our assumptions of extreme accretion rates in X-ray binaries, and impact other subfields of astronomy, such as cosmology, gravitational wave sources and supernov{\ae}. Our understanding of ULXs…
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…
New X-ray polarisation results are challenging our understanding of the accretion flow geometry in black hole binary systems. Even spectra dominated by a standard disc can give unexpected results, such as the high inclination black hole…
POLAR is a novel compact Compton X-ray polarimeter designed to measure the linear polarization of the prompt emission of Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB) and other strong transient sources such as soft gamma repeaters and solar flares in the energy…
In this paper we discuss various possibilities of using X-ray observations to gain information about the large-scale structure of the Universe. After reviewing briefly the current status of these investigations we explore different ways of…
Studying the physical processes occurring in the region just above the magnetic poles of strongly magnetized, accreting binary neutron stars is essential to our understanding of stellar and binary system evolution. Perhaps more importantly,…
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…
Precise knowledge of the features of several X-ray sources from compact binary sources to galactic nuclei is gradually unveiling the physical parameters of relativistic neutron stars and black holes therein. Recent developments in theory,…
A measure of the degree of polarization for the three-dimensional polarization matrix (coherence matrix) of an electromagnetic field is proposed, based on Rayleigh scattering. The degree of polarization, due to dipole scattering of the…
In this work, we measured the polarization properties of the X-rays emitted from the X-ray tubes, which were used during the calibration of the instrument onboard Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE). X-ray tubes are used as a source…
GRS 1915+105 has been in a bright flux state for more than 2 decades, but in 2018 a significant drop in flux was observed, partly due to changes in the central engine along with increased X-ray absorption. The aim of this work is to explore…
X-ray astronomy is an important tool in the astrophysicist's toolkit to investigate high-energy astrophysical phenomena. Theoretical numerical simulations of astrophysical sources are fully three-dimensional representations of physical…
X-ray emission is ubiquitous among massive stars. In the last decade, X-ray observations revolutionized our perception of stellar winds but opened a Pandora's box of urgent problems. X-rays penetrating stellar winds suffer mainly continuum…
X-ray binaries hosting a compact object have been among the main targets of the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) since its launch, due to their high brightness in the 2-8 keV energy band. The spectropolarimetric analysis performed…
There are different methods for finding exoplanets such as radial spectral shifts, astrometrical measurements, transits, timing etc. Gravitational microlensing (including pixel-lensing) is among the most promising techniques with the…
From hot, tenuous gas dominated by Compton processes, to warm, photoionized emission-line regions, to cold, optically thick fluorescing matter, accreting gas flows in X-ray binaries span a huge portion of the parameter space accessible to…