[Okc-wp4] Fwd: X-ray polarimetry seminar (Wednesday, 1300) and thesis defence (Thursday, 1400).

[Serena Nobili]

From: Mark Pearce <pearce at kth.se<mailto:pearce at kth.se>>
Subject: X-ray polarimetry seminar (Wednesday, 1300) and thesis defence (Thursday, 1400).
Date: 28 May 2018 at 15:23:10 CEST
To: "Okc-wp4 at fysik.su.se<mailto:Okc-wp4 at fysik.su.se>" <Okc-wp4 at fysik.su.se<mailto:Okc-wp4 at fysik.su.se>>, "epi at particle.kth.se<mailto:epi at particle.kth.se>" <epi at particle.kth.se<mailto:epi at particle.kth.se>>, "exjobbare at particle.kth.se<mailto:exjobbare at particle.kth.se>" <exjobbare at particle.kth.se<mailto:exjobbare at particle.kth.se>>


Hej,

Herman Marshall (MIT) will give a seminar on X-ray polarimetry on Wednesday 30th May, 1300, in the KTH meeting room on the 5th floor. The abstract is appended below.

On Thursday, Herman will be the opponent for Victor Mikhalev’s Ph.D. Thesis defence (starting at 1400, FB42) - “Measurements of hard X-ray polarisation from the Crab and Cygnus X-1” (http://kth.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1208715<http://kth.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2:1208715>).

You are very welcome to both events!

        -Mark

---------------------------------------
Expanding the Field of X-ray Polarimetry

Herman Marshall, MIT

I will present several projects to measure the X-ray polarizations of astronomical sources over the next 5-10 years.  Previous observations were obtained in the 1970s for bright Galactic sources such as X-ray binaries and the Crab Nebula using a Bragg reflection from graphite crystals, limiting the measurements to 2.6 and 5.2 keV.  Recently, detections have been reported using Compton scattering at hard X-rays. An approved NASA mission is the Imaging X-ray Polarization Explorer (IXPE).  It would operate in the 2-8 keV range and is expected to launch in early 2021. It has an imaging capability, with a resolution of about a half arc-minute, and should detect X-ray polarizations as low as 1-5 percent for a dozen or more active galaxies, supernova remnants, neutron stars, and X-ray binaries during a mission lifetime of a few years. I will describe the instrument and some of the science goals.  I will also describe a design for a sounding rocket based polarimeter to work in the 0.2-0.6 keV band.  The method uses gratings developed at MIT and multilayer coated mirrors.  Potential targets include active galaxies, isolated neutron stars, and nearby black hole binaries in outburst.  The configuration is extensible to orbital use, possibly to be combined with other instruments to provide a bandpass from 0.2 to 50 keV.


------------------------------------
Mark Pearce
professor, Head of Physics Department

KTH Royal Institute of Technology
https://www.kth.se/profile/pearce











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