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Design and Performance of the X-ray polarimeter X-Calibur
- Publication Year :
- 2014
-
Abstract
- X-ray polarimetry promises to give qualitatively new information about high-energy astrophysical sources, such as binary black hole systems, micro-quasars, active galactic nuclei, neutron stars, and gamma-ray bursts. We designed, built and tested a X-ray polarimeter, X-Calibur, to be used in the focal plane of the balloon-borne InFOCuS grazing incidence X-ray telescope. X-Calibur combines a low-Z scatterer with a CZT detector assembly to measure the polarization of 20-80keV X-rays making use of the fact that polarized photons scatter preferentially perpendicular to the electric field orientation. X-Calibur achieves a high detection efficiency of ~80%. The X-Calibur detector assembly is completed, tested, and fully calibrated. The response to a polarized X-ray beam was measured successfully at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source. This paper describes the design, calibration and performance of the X-Calibur polarimeter. In principle, a similar space-borne scattering polarimeter could operate over the broader 2-100keV energy band.<br />Comment: 53 pages, 32 figures, accepted by the Journal of Astronomical Instrumentation
- Subjects :
- Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Subjects
Details
- Database :
- arXiv
- Publication Type :
- Report
- Accession number :
- edsarx.1412.6457
- Document Type :
- Working Paper