"XL-Calibur", the Next-Generation Balloon-Borne Hard X-ray PolarimeterShow others and affiliations
Number of Authors: 682021 (English)In: Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2020: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray / [ed] DenHerder, JWA Nikzad, S Nakazawa, K, SPIE-Intl Soc Optical Eng , 2021, article id 114442XConference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]
This paper introduces a second-generation balloon-borne hard X-ray polarimetry mission, XL-Calibur.(1) The XL-Calibur will follow up on the X-Calibur mission which was flown from Dec. 29, 2018 for a 2.5 days balloon flight from McMurdo (the Antarctic). X-ray polarimetry promises to give qualitatively new information about high-energy astrophysical sources, such as pulsars and binary black hole systems. The XL-Calibur contains a grazing incidence X-ray telescope with a focal plane detector unit that is sensitive to linear polarization. The telescope is very similar in design to the ASTRO-H HXT telescopes that has the world's largest effective area above 10 keV. XL-Calibur will use the same type of mirror. The detector unit combines a low atomic number Compton scatterer with a CdZnTe detector assembly to measure the polarization making use of the fact that polarized photons Compton scatter preferentially perpendicular to the electric field orientation. It also contains a CdZnTe imager at the bottom. The detector assembly is surrounded by a BGO anticoincidence shield. The pointing system with arcsecond accuracy will be achieved by the WASP (Wallops Arc Second Pointer) from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. A first flight of the XL-Calibur is currently foreseen for 2022, flying from Sweden.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
SPIE-Intl Soc Optical Eng , 2021. article id 114442X
Series
Proceedings of SPIE, ISSN 0277-786X ; 11444
Keywords [en]
X-ray light source, X-ray generator, X-ray beamline
National Category
Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-300365DOI: 10.1117/12.2560319ISI: 000674737700046Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85099284103OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-300365DiVA, id: diva2:1589504
Conference
Conference on Space Telescopes and Instrumentation - Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray / SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation Conference, DEC 14-18, 2020, ELECTR NETWORK
Note
Part of proceedings: ISBN 978-1-5106-3676-7, QC 20230117
2021-08-312021-08-312024-03-15Bibliographically approved