The Imaging X-ray polarimetry explorer (IXPE): Technical overview III

Soffitta, P.; Attina, P.; Baldini, L.; Barbanera, M.; Baumgartner, W. H.; Bellazzini, R.; Bladt, J.; Bongiorno, S. D.; Brez, A.; Castellano, S.; Carpentiero, R.; Castronuovo, M.; Cavalli, L.; Cavazzuti, E.; D'Amico, F.; Citraro, S.; Costa, E.; Deininger, W. D.; D'Alba, E.; Del Monte, E.; Dietz, K. L.; Di Lalla, N.; Di Marco, A.; Di Persio, G.; Donnarumma, I.; Fabiani, S.; Ferrazzoli, R.; Gray, S.; Guy, L.; Head, M.; Kalinowski, W.; Kolodziejczak, J. J.; Latronico, L.; Lefevre, C.; Lorenzi, P.; Lucchesi, L.; Maldera, S.; Manfreda, A.; Mangraviti, E.; Marshall, H. L.; Masciarelli, J.; Matt, G.; Minuti, M.; Mize, R.; Muleri, F.; Nasimi, H.; Negri, B.; Nuti, A.; O'Dell, S. L.; Orsini, L.; Osborne, D.; Pilia, M.; Perri, M.; Pesce-Rollins, M.; Peterson, C.; Pinchera, M.; Puccetti, S.; Ramsey, B. D.; Ratheesh, A.; Romani, R. W.; Sarra, P.; Santoli, F.; Sciortino, A.; Schroeder, C.; Sgro, C.; Spandre, G.; Tennant, A. F.; Tobia, A.; Thomas, N. E.; Trois, A.; Vimercati, M.; Wedmore, J.; Weisskopf, M. C.; Xie, F.; Zanetti, F.; Alexander, C.; Zachery Allen, D.; Amici, F.; Angelo Antonelli, L.; Antoniak, S.; Bachetti, M.; Baggett, R. M.; Bonino, R.; Borotto, F.; Breeding, S.; Brienza, D.; Kyle Bygott, H.; Caporale, C.; Cardelli, C.; Ceccanti, M.; Centrone, M.; Dolan, D.; Evangelista, Y.; Ferrant, K.; Ferrie, M.; Footdale, J.; Forsyth, B.; Foster, M.; Garelick, B.; Gurnee, E.; Hibbard, G.; Johnson, S.; Johnson, S.; Kelly, E.; Kilaru, K.; la Monaca, F.; Le Roy, S.; Loffredo, P.; Maddox, T.; Magazzu, G.; Marengo, M.; Marrocchesi, A.; Massaro, F.; Mccracken, J.; Mceachen, M.; Mereu, P.; Mitchell, S.; Mitsuishi, I.; Moore, J.; Morbidini, A.; Mosti, F.; Negro, M.; Oppedisano, C.; Pacheco, R.; Paggi, A.; Pavelitz, S. D.; Pentz, C.; Piazzolla, R.; Porter, B.; Profeti, A.; Ranganathan, J.; Rankin, J.; Root, N.; Rubini, A.; Ruswick, S.; Sanchez, J.; Scalise, E.; Schindhelm, S.; Seek, T.; Speegle, C. O.; Tamagawa, T.; Tardiola, M.; Walden, A. L.; Weddendorf, B.; Welch, D.

doi:10.1117/12.2567001

The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) will add linear polarization (degree and angle) to the usual features (time, energy, and position) typical of an x-ray astronomy mission. It will expand the available information. IXPE is a NASA Astrophysics Small Explorer (SMEX) mission with a large contribution by ASI which will be launched into an equatorial orbit in 2021. While several non-useful upper limits are available back from the'70 the two order of magnitude improvement of IXPE mission will provide meaningful observations among few dozen sources in the 2-8 keV band. Thanks to its imaging capabilities, it will be possible to produce for the first time polarization maps of several X-ray-bright extended sources. Thanks to its sensitivity, also phase-resolved polarimetry of many bright pulsating x-ray sources will be available.