Taverna, Roberto;
Turolla, Roberto;
Muleri, Fabio;
Heyl, Jeremy;
Zane, Silvia;
Baldini, Luca;
Caniulef, Denis González;
... Xie, Fei; + view all
(2022)
Polarized x-rays from a magnetar.
ArXiv: Ithaca, NY, USA.
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Abstract
We report on the first detection of linearly polarized x-ray emission from an ultra-magnetized neutron star with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE). The IXPE 35 observations of the anomalous x-ray pulsar 4U 0142+61 reveal a linear polarization degree of (12±1)% throughout the IXPE 2--8 keV band. We detect a substantial variation of the polarization with energy: the degree is (14±1)% at 2--4 keV and (41±7)% at 5.5--8 keV, while it drops below the instrumental sensitivity around 4--5 keV, where the polarization angle swings by ∼90∘. The IXPE observations give us completely new information about the properties of the neutron star surface and magnetosphere and lend further support to the presence of the quantum mechanical effect of vacuum birefringence.
| Type: | Working / discussion paper |
|---|---|
| Title: | Polarized x-rays from a magnetar |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Publisher version: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.08898v1 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This is an Open Access paper published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Space and Climate Physics UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10154289 |
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