XIPE: the x-ray imaging polarimetry explorer
Author(s)
Grinberg, Victoria; Linares Alegret, Manuel; Marshall, Herman; Schulz, Norbert S.
Download990515.pdf (662.5Kb)
PUBLISHER_POLICY
Publisher Policy
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Terms of use
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
XIPE, the X-ray Imaging Polarimetry Explorer, is a mission dedicated to X-ray Astronomy. At the time of writing XIPE is in a competitive phase A as fourth medium size mission of ESA (M4). It promises to reopen the polarimetry window in high energy Astrophysics after more than 4 decades thanks to a detector that efficiently exploits the photoelectric effect and to X-ray optics with large effective area. XIPE uniqueness is time-spectrally-spatially-resolved X-ray polarimetry as a breakthrough in high energy astrophysics and fundamental physics. Indeed the payload consists of three Gas Pixel Detectors at the focus of three X-ray optics with a total effective area larger than one XMM mirror but with a low weight. The payload is compatible with the fairing of the Vega launcher. XIPE is designed as an observatory for X-ray astronomers with 75 % of the time dedicated to a Guest Observer competitive program and it is organized as a consortium across Europe with main contributions from Italy, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom, Poland, Sweden.
Date issued
2016-06Department
MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space ResearchJournal
Proceedings Volume 9905, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2016: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray
Publisher
SPIE
Citation
Soffitta, P., et al. "XIPE: The x-Ray Imaging Polarimetry Explorer." Proceedings Volume 9905, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2016: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 26 June - July 1, 2016, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, edited by Jan-Willem A. den Herder et al., 2016, SPIE, p. 990515. © 2016 SPIE
Version: Final published version