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Hard X-ray polarimetry—an overview of the method, science drivers, and recent findings

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Abstract

The last decade has seen a leapfrog in the interest of X-ray polarimetry with a number of new polarization measurements in hard X-rays from AstroSat, POLAR, GAP, and PoGO+. The measurements provide some interesting insights into various astrophysical phenomena such as coronal geometry and disk–jet connection in black hole X-ray binaries, hard X-ray emission mechanism in pulsars, and gamma-ray bursts. They also highlight an increase in polarization with energy, which makes hard X-ray polarimetry extremely appealing. There are a number of confirmed hard X-ray polarimetry experiments which along with the existing instruments (AstroSat and INTEGRAL) make this field further exciting. Polarization experiments may also see significant progress in sensitivity with new developments in scintillator readouts, active pixel sensors, and cadmium zinc telluride detectors. In particular, the advent of hard X-ray focusing optics will enable the designing of compact focal plane polarimeters with a multifold enhancement in sensitivity. In this review, we will focus on the recent polarimetry findings and science potential of hard X-ray polarimetry along with possible improvements in the measurement techniques.

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Notes

  1. https://www.star-iitb.in/research/daksha.

  2. https://eljentechnology.com/products/plastic-scintillators.

  3. https://www.crystals.saint-gobain.com/products/bc-408-bc-412-bc-416.

  4. http://www.cryos-beta.kharkov.ua/organic.php.

  5. https://www.hamamatsu.com/us/en/product/optical-sensors/pmt/index.html.

  6. https://www.hamamatsu.com/us/en/product/optical-sensors/mppc/index.html.

  7. https://www.ketek.net/sipm/.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Prof. A. R. Rao, Prof. Santosh Vadawale, and Prof. David Burrows for the useful discussions while writing this article. Dr. Moszi Kiss and Prof. Maxime Chauvin of PoGO+ collaboration provided some important inputs about the PoGO+ payload and future hard X-ray polarimetry techniques. He is thankful to Prof. Mark McConnell for sharing with me some useful content about GRAPE and LEAP polarimetry designs. Also like to acknowledge Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy and in particular, Prof. Tushar P. Prabhu for inviting me to write this article. Some of the figures and pictures used in this article are either adapted or taken from published articles. He is grateful to the authors and the publishers of the articles for providing me the necessary copyright permissions for the reuse of the materials.

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    Tanmoy Chattopadhyay

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Chattopadhyay, T. Hard X-ray polarimetry—an overview of the method, science drivers, and recent findings. J Astrophys Astron 42, 106 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12036-021-09769-5

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