The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) mission

by Alberto Manfreda

Monday 23 May 2022, 11:15 → 12:00 Europe/Zurich

Hybrid

On December 9th 2021, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) was launched on a Falcon IX from Cape Canaveral into its equatorial, low-Earth orbit, where it began scientific observations on January 11th 2022. Equipped with three identical telescopes---each providing simultaneous polarimetric, spatial, spectroscopic and temporal information---IXPE will measure, for the first time in the soft X-ray band, the polarization of tens of celestial objects of different classes: supernova remnants, pulsars and pulsar wind nebulae, magnetars, active galactic nuclei and accreting black holes.

In the seminar, I will give an overview of what we can learn from X-ray polarimetry and of how IXPE will make that science possible, thanks to the innovative, polarization-sensitive gas detectors laying in its focal plane. I will also report on the first scientific results of the mission.

ixpe_LPHE_2022.pdf