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, and gamma-ray bursts. We designed, built and tested a hard X-ray polarimeter, X-Calibur, to be used in the focal plane of the balloon-borne 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. The X-Calibur detector assembly is completed, tested, and calibrated; a first flight is scheduled from Ft. Sumner, NM, in fall 2014. 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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    Title :

    Design and tests of the hard X-ray polarimeter X-Calibur


    Contributors:
    Beilicke, Matthias (author) / Cowsik, R. (author) / Dowkontt, P. (author) / Guo, Q. (author) / Kislat, F. (author) / Krawczynski, H. (author) / Barthelmy, S. (author) / Okajima, T. (author) / Mitchell, J.W. (author) / Schnittman, J. (author)


    Publication date :

    2014-03-01


    Size :

    2196766 byte




    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



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