Open AccessDesign and Tests of the Hard X-ray Polarimeter X-Calibur
Author(s) -
M. Beilicke,
R. Cowsik,
P. F. Dowkontt,
Q. Guo,
Fabian Kislat,
S. D. Barthelmy,
Takashi Okajima,
J. W. Mitchell,
Jeremy D. Schnittman,
B. Zeiger,
G. De Geronimo,
Matthew G. Baring,
A. Bodaghee,
Tatsuo Miyazawa,
K. D. Finkelstein,
H. Krawczynski
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
acta polytechnica ctu proceedings
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2336-5382
DOI - 10.14311/app.2014.01.0293
Subject(s) - polarimeter , physics , polarimetry , polarization (electrochemistry) , optics , telescope , compton scattering , photon , astrophysics , x ray detector , quasar , active galactic nucleus , gamma ray burst , synchrotron , detector , scattering , galaxy , chemistry
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.