成像 X 射线偏振探测器的仪器
天体物理仪器与方法
2021-10-27 v1
摘要
自 1962 年发现首个天文非太阳源以来,X 射线能谱、计时与成像已取得长足进步,尤其是随着 Newton/X 射线多镜面任务、Rossi/X 射线计时探测器和 Chandra/先进 X 射线天体物理设施的发射;然而 X 射线偏振测量的进展却十分有限。这部分归因于缺乏灵敏的偏振探测器,部分归因于已批准任务的命运,部分则因为天体 X 射线源的实际偏振度低于预期。迄今仅有一例正向测量结果,即第八颗轨道太阳观测台在 70 年代测得了蟹状星云的偏振。微电子技术的出现使得设计一种基于气体中光电效应的探测器成为可能,其工作能段正是光学系统高效聚焦 X 射线的能段。本文描述该仪器,它是意大利合作组对名为 IXPE(成像 X 射线偏振探测器)的小型探测器(SmallExplorer)任务的主要贡献,该任务将于 2021 年底发射。该仪器由三个基于上述技术的探测单元和一个探测服务单元组成。由马歇尔空间飞行中心提供的三个镜模块将 X 射线聚焦到探测器上。下文将展示技术选型、其科学动机以及仪器定标结果。IXPE 将在 2-8 keV 能段开展成像、计时与能量分辨偏振测量,由此向几乎所有类别的数十个天体源开启 X 射线天文学的这一窗口。
引用
@article{arxiv.2108.00284,
title = {The Instrument of the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer},
author = {Paolo Soffitta and Luca Baldini and Ronaldo Bellazzini and Enrico Costa and Luca Latronico and Fabio Muleri and Ettore Del Monte and Sergio Fabiani and Massimo Minuti and Michele Pinchera and Carmelo Sgrò and Gloria Spandre and Alessio Trois and Fabrizio Amici and Hans Andersson and Primo Attinà and Matteo Bachetti and Mattia Barbanera and Fabio Borotto and Alessandro Brez and Daniele Brienza and Ciro Caporale and Claudia Cardelli and Rita Carpentiero and Simone Castellano and Marco Castronuovo and Luca Cavalli and Elisabetta Cavazzuti and Marco Ceccanti and Mauro Centrone and Stefano Ciprini and Saverio Citraro and Fabio D' Amico and Elisa D' Alba and Sergio Di Cosimo and Niccolò Di Lalla and Alessandro Di Marco and Giuseppe Di Persio and Immacolata Donnarumma and Yuri Evangelista and Riccardo Ferrazzoli and Asami Hayato and Takao Kitaguchi and Fabio La Monaca and Carlo Lefevre and Pasqualino Loffredo and Paolo Lorenzi and Leonardo Lucchesi and Carlo Magazzu and Simone Maldera and Alberto Manfreda and Elio Mangraviti and Marco Marengo and Giorgio Matt and Paolo Mereu and Alfredo Morbidini and Federico Mosti and Toshio Nakano and Hikmat Nasimi and Barbara Negri and Seppo Nenonen and Alessio Nuti and Leonardo Orsini and Matteo Perri and Melissa Pesce Rollins and Raffaele Piazzolla and Maura Pilia and Alessandro Profeti and Simonetta Puccetti and John Rankin and Ajay Ratheesh and Alda Rubini and Francesco Santoli and Paolo Sarra and Emanuele Scalise and Andrea Sciortino and Toru Tamagawa and Marcello Tardiola and Antonino Tobia and Marco Vimercati and Fei Xie},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2108.00284},
year = {2021}
}
备注
25 pages, 12 figures, 5 tables (accepted for publication in Astronomical Journal)