High-resolution spectropolarimetry is a useful astronomical technique, in particular to study stellar magnetic fields. It has been extensively used in the past but mostly in the visible range. Space missions equipped with high-resolution spectropolarimeters working in the ultra-violet (UV) are now being studied. We propose a concept of a polarimeter working with temporal modulation and allowing to perform Stokes IQUV measurements over the full UV + Visible range. The purpose of this article is to describe the polarimeter concept, two prototypes and the bench developed to perform on ground testing to establish the performances of this new polarimeter.

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Maëlle Le Gal, Martin Pertenais, Arturo López Ariste, Coralie Neiner, Norbert Champion, Youssef Younes, and Jean-Michel Reess, "VUV test of a new polarimeter for spectropolarimetric measurements on board space missions," Proc. SPIE 10706, Advances in Optical and Mechanical Technologies for Telescopes and Instrumentation III, 107061M (Presented at SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation: June 13, 2018; Published: 10 July 2018); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2311707.