Related papers: RHESSI as a Hard X-Ray Polarimeter
The scientific potential of X-ray polarimetry has long been recognized, but the challenges in measuring polarization have left it largely unexplored, particularly in the hard X-ray regime. While tremendous advancement has been made in soft…
The MIT X-ray Polarimetry Beamline is a facility that we developed for testing components for possible use in X-ray polarimetry. Over the past few years, we have demonstrated that the X-ray source can generate nearly 100% polarized X-rays…
We are developing instrumentation for a telescope design capable of measuring linear X-ray polarization over a broad-band using conventional spectroscopic optics. Multilayer-coated mirrors are key to this approach, being used as Bragg…
Observations of linear polarization in the 2-8 keV energy range with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) explore the magnetic field geometry and dynamics of the regions generating non-thermal radiation in relativistic jets of…
X-ray polarimetry promises to give new information about high-energy astrophysical sources, such as binary black hole systems, micro-quasars, active galactic nuclei, and gamma-ray bursts. We designed, built and tested a hard X-ray…
We study the correlation between abrupt permanent changes of magnetic field during X-class flares observed by the GONG and HMI instruments, and the hard X-ray (HXR) emission observed by RHESSI, to relate the photospheric field changes to…
A new technical method is developed for soft x-ray spectroscopy of near-edge x-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS). The measurement is performed with continuously rotating linearly polarized light over 2$\pi$, generated by a segmented…
Context. Hard X-ray (HXR) spikes refer to fine time structures on timescales of seconds to milliseconds in high-energy HXR emission profiles during solar flare eruptions. Aims. We present a preliminary statistical investigation of temporal…
Direct imaging has paved the way for atmospheric characterization of young and self-luminous gas giants. Scattering in a horizontally-inhomogeneous atmosphere causes the disk-integrated polarization of the thermal radiation to be linearly…
X-ray observations are a powerful diagnostic tool for transport, acceleration, and heating of electrons in solar flares. Height and size measurements of X-ray footpoints sources can be used to determine the chromospheric density and…
In this paper, the energy budgets of two single-loop like flares observed in X- ray are analysed under the assumption that non-thermal electrons (NTEs) are the only source of plasma heating during all phases of both events. The flares were…
The polarization of an X-ray beam that produces electrons with velocity components perpendicular to the beam generates an azimuthal distribution of the ejected electrons. We present methods for simulating and for analyzing the angular…
One way of imaging X-ray emission from solar flares is to measure Fourier components of the spatial X-ray source distribution. We present a new Compressed Sensing-based algorithm named VIS_CS, which reconstructs the spatial distribution…
We report a NuSTAR observation of a solar microflare, SOL2015-09-01T04. Although it was too faint to be observed by the GOES X-ray Sensor, we estimate the event to be an A0.1 class flare in brightness. This microflare, with only 5 counts…
Radiation of X-ray bursts and of accretion shocks in weakly magnetized neutron stars in low-mass X-ray binaries is produced in plane-parallel atmospheres dominated by electron scattering. We first discuss polarization produced by single…
The X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM), launched into low-Earth orbit in 2023, observes the reflection of solar flare X-rays in the Earth's atmosphere as a by-product of celestial observations. Using a $\sim$one-year data set…
The Gas Pixel Detector, recently developed and continuously improved by Pisa INFN in collaboration with IASF-Roma of INAF, can visualize the tracks produced within a low Z gas by photoelectrons of few keV. By reconstructing the impact point…
All gamma-ray telescopes suffer from source confusion due to their inability to focus incident high-energy radiation, and the resulting background contamination can obscure the periodic emission from faint pulsars. In the context of the…
We report observations of a white-light solar flare (SOL2010-06-12T00:57, M2.0) observed by the Helioseismic Magnetic Imager (HMI) on the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and the Reuven Ramaty High-Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager…
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…