Development of cosmic x-ray polarimeter

Asami Hayato; Toru Tamagawa; Naoko Tsunoda; Shigehira Hashimoto; Masao Miyamoto; Mitsuhiro Kohama; Fuyuki Tokanai; Hideki Hamagaki; Masahide Inuzuka; Hiromasa Miyasaka; Ikuya Sakurai; Kazuo Makishima

doi:10.1117/12.671242

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15 June 2006 Development of cosmic x-ray polarimeter

Asami Hayato, Toru Tamagawa, Naoko Tsunoda, Shigehira Hashimoto, Masao Miyamoto, Mitsuhiro Kohama, Fuyuki Tokanai, Hideki Hamagaki, Masahide Inuzuka, Hiromasa Miyasaka, Ikuya Sakurai, Kazuo Makishima

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 6266, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation II: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray; 62663X (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.671242
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2006, Orlando, Florida , United States

Abstract

We present a performance study of a cosmic X-ray polarimeter which is based on the photoelectric effect in gas, and sensitive to a few to 30 keV range. In our polarimeter, the key device would be the 50 μm pitch Gas Electron Multiplier (GEM). We have evaluated the modulation factor using highly polarized X-ray, provided by a synchrotron accelerator. In the analysis, we selected events by the eccentricity of the charge cloud of the photoelectron track. As a result, we obtained the relationship between the selection criteria for the eccentricity and the modulation factors; for example, when we selected the events which have their eccentricity of > 0.95, the polarimeter exhibited with the modulation factor of 0.32. In addition, we estimated the Minimum Detectable Polarization degree (MDP) of Crab Nebula with our polarimeter and found 10 ksec observation is enough to detect the polarization, if we adopt suitable X-ray mirrors.

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Asami Hayato, Toru Tamagawa, Naoko Tsunoda, Shigehira Hashimoto, Masao Miyamoto, Mitsuhiro Kohama, Fuyuki Tokanai, Hideki Hamagaki, Masahide Inuzuka, Hiromasa Miyasaka, Ikuya Sakurai, and Kazuo Makishima "Development of cosmic x-ray polarimeter", Proc. SPIE 6266, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation II: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 62663X (15 June 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.671242

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