Design and Tests of the Hard X-ray Polarimeter X-Calibur

Authors

  • M. Beilicke Department of Physics and McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, MO
  • R. Cowsik Department of Physics and McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, MO
  • P. Dowkontt Department of Physics and McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, MO
  • Q. Guo Department of Physics and McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, MO
  • F. Kislat Department of Physics and McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, MO
  • S. Barthelmy Goddard Space Flight Center, MD
  • T. Okajima Goddard Space Flight Center, MD
  • J. W. Mitchell Goddard Space Flight Center, MD
  • J. Schnittman Goddard Space Flight Center, MD
  • B. Zeiger Goddard Space Flight Center, MD
  • G. De Geronimo Brookhaven National Lab, NY
  • M. G. Baring Rice University, TX
  • A. Bodaghee UC Berkeley, CA
  • T. Miyazawa Nagoya University
  • K. D. Finkelstein Cornell University, NY
  • H. Krawczynski Department of Physics and McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, MO

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14311/APP.2014.01.0293

Abstract

X-ray polarimetry promises to give qualitatively new information bout high-energy astrophysical sources, such as binary black hole  systems, micro-quasars, active galactic nuclei, and gamma-ray bursts. We designed, built and tested ahard X-ray polarimeter, X-Calibur, to be used in the focal plane of the InFOCuS grazing incidence hard X-ray telescope.X-Calibur combines a low-Z Compton scatterer with a CZT detector assembly to measure the polarization of 20−60 keV X-rays making use of the fact that polarized photons Compton scatter preferentially perpendicular to the electric field orientation; in principal, a similar space-borne experiment could be operated in the 5−100 keV regime. X-Calibur achieves a high detection efficiency of order unity.

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Published

2014-12-05

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 1 (2014): FRASCATI WORKSHOP 2013

Section

Articles