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POLARIX: a pathfinder mission of X-ray polarimetry

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Abstract

Since the birth of X-ray astronomy, spectral, spatial and timing observation improved dramatically, procuring a wealth of information on the majority of the classes of the celestial sources. Polarimetry, instead, remained basically unprobed. X-ray polarimetry promises to provide additional information procuring two new observable quantities, the degree and the angle of polarization. Polarization from celestial X-ray sources may derive from emission mechanisms themselves such as cyclotron, synchrotron and non-thermal bremsstrahlung, from scattering in aspheric accreting plasmas, such as disks, blobs and columns and from the presence of extreme magnetic field by means of vacuum polarization and birefringence. Matter in strong gravity fields and Quantum Gravity effects can be studied by X-ray polarimetry, too. POLARIX is a mission dedicated to X-ray polarimetry. It exploits the polarimetric response of a Gas Pixel Detector, combined with position sensitivity, that, at the focus of a telescope, results in a huge increase of sensitivity. The heart of the detector is an Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) chip with 105,600 pixels each one containing a full complete electronic chain to image the track produced by the photoelectron. Three Gas Pixel Detectors are coupled with three X-ray optics which are the heritage of JET-X mission. A filter wheel hosting calibration sources unpolarized and polarized is dedicated to each detector for periodic on-ground and in-flight calibration. POLARIX will measure time resolved X-ray polarization with an angular resolution of about 20 arcsec in a field of view of 15 × 15 arcmin and with an energy resolution of 20% at 6 keV. The Minimum Detectable Polarization is 12% for a source having a flux of 1 mCrab and 105 s of observing time. The satellite will be placed in an equatorial orbit of 505 km of altitude by a Vega launcher. The telemetry down-link station will be Malindi. The pointing of POLARIX satellite will be gyroless and it will perform a double pointing during the earth occultation of one source, so maximizing the scientific return. POLARIX data are for 75% open to the community while 25% + SVP (Science Verification Phase, 1 month of operation) is dedicated to a core program activity open to the contribution of associated scientists. The planned duration of the mission is one year plus three months of commissioning and SVP, suitable to perform most of the basic science within the reach of this instrument. A nice to have idea is to use the same existing mandrels to build two additional telescopes of iridium with carbon coating plus two more detectors. The effective area in this case would be almost doubled.

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Acknowledgements

The first studies of POLARIX were supported by ASI contract I/088/060 for which we thank Elisabetta Cavazzuti. The phase A study was supported by ASI contract I/016/08/0 . We thank Maria Cristina Falvella, Donatella Frangipane, Elisabetta Tommasi, Simona Zoffoli, Marino Crisconio, Paolo Giommi, Francesco Longo, Fabio D’Amico, Jean Sabbagh, Giancarlo Varacalli and Valeria Catalano from ASI for the effective and cooperative effort during all the study. We also acknowledge the support of ASI contract I/012/08/0 and Maria Barbara Negri. We also acknowledge the contrbution of large teams of Thales Alenia Space Italy and of Telespazio. A special thanks to Volker Liebig, Director of Earth Observation Programmes of ESA, for considering the possibility of making available to POLARIX spare parts of the GOCE mission.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica, Via del Fosso del Cavaliere 100, 00133, Rome, Italy

    Enrico Costa, Andrea Argan, Sergio Di Cosimo, Sergio Fabiani, Marco Feroci, Francesco Lazzarotto, Ennio Morelli, Fabio Muleri, Giuseppe Di Persio, Alda Rubini, Paolo Soffitta & Alessio Trois

  2. Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Largo B. Pontecorvo 3, 56127, Pisa, Italy

    Ronaldo Bellazzini, Luca Baldini, Alessandro Brez, Luca Latronico, Massimo Minuti, Michele Pinchera, Massimiliano Razzano, Carmelo Sgro’ & Gloria Spandre

  3. Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Via E. Bianchi 46, 23807, Merate (Lc), Italy

    Gianpiero Tagliaferri, Stefano Basso, Oberto Citterio, Vincenzo Cotroneo, Giovanni Pareschi & Daniele Spiga

  4. Dipartimento di Fisica “E. Amaldi”, Universita’ degli Studi Roma Tre, Via della Vasca Navale 84, 00146, Rome, Italy

    Giorgio Matt

  5. Thales Alenia Space-Italia s.p.a., Strada Antica di Collegno, 253, 10146, Turin, Italy

    Primo Attinà & Antonella Ferri

  6. Telespazio, Via Tiburtina 965, 00156, Rome, Italy

    Luigia Reboa & Antonio Maria Salonico

  7. Thales Alenia Space-Italia s.p.a., Strada Statale Padana Superiore 290, 20090, Vimodrone (Mi), Italy

    Lucio Nicolini

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  29. Carmelo Sgro’
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  30. Paolo Soffitta
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  31. Gloria Spandre
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Correspondence to Paolo Soffitta.

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Costa, E., Bellazzini, R., Tagliaferri, G. et al. POLARIX: a pathfinder mission of X-ray polarimetry. Exp Astron 28, 137–183 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10686-010-9194-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10686-010-9194-1

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