arXiv · 2306.08476
First detection of X-ray polarization from the accreting neutron star 4U 1820-303
Abstract
This paper reports the first detection of polarization in the X-rays for atoll-source 4U 1820-303, obtained with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) at 99.999% confidence level (CL). Simultaneous polarimetric measurements were also performed in the radio with the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA). The IXPE observations of 4U 1820-303 were coordinated with Swift-XRT, NICER, and NuSTAR aiming to obtain an accurate X-ray spectral model covering a broad energy interval. The source shows a significant polarization above 4 keV, with a polarization degree of 2.0(0.5)% and a polarization angle of -55(7) deg in the 4-7 keV energy range, and a polarization degree of 10(2)% and a polarization angle of -67(7) deg in the 7-8 keV energy bin. This polarization also shows a clear energy trend with polarization degree increasing with energy and a hint for a position-angle change of about 90 deg at 96% CL around 4 keV. The spectro-polarimetric fit indicates that the accretion disk is polarized orthogonally to the hard spectral component, which is presumably produced in the boundary/spreading layer. We do not detect linear polarization from the radio counterpart, with a 99.97% upper limit of 50% at 7.25 GHz.
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Alessandro Di Marco, Fabio La Monaca, Juri Poutanen, Thomas D. Russell, Alessio Anitra, Ruben Farinelli, Guglielmo Mastroserio, Fabio Muleri, Fei Xie, Matteo Bachetti, Luciano Burderi, Francesco Carotenuto, Melania Del Santo, Tiziana Di Salvo, Michal Dovciak, Andrea Gnarini, Rosario Iaria, Jari J. E. Kajava, Kuan Liu, Riccardo Middei, Stephen L. O'Dell, Maura Pilia, John Rankin, Andrea Sanna, Jakob van den Eijnden, Martin C. Weisskopf, Anna Bobrikova, Fiamma Capitanio, Enrico Costa, Philip Kaaret, Alessio Marino, Paolo Soffitta, Francesco Ursini, Filippo Ambrosino, Massimo Cocchi, Sergio Fabiani, Herman L. Marshall, Giorgio Matt, Sara Elisa Motta, Alessandro Papitto, Luigi Stella, Antonella Tarana, Silvia Zane, Ivan Agudo, Lucio A. Antonelli, Luca Baldini, Wayne H. Baumgartner, Ronaldo Bellazzini, Stefano Bianchi, Stephen D. Bongiorno, Raffaella Bonino, Alessandro Brez, Niccolo Bucciantini, Simone Castellano, Elisabetta Cavazzuti, Chien-Ting Chen, Stefano Ciprini, Alessandra De Rosa, Ettore Del Monte, Laura Di Gesu, Niccolo Di Lalla, Immacolata Donnarumma, Victor Doroshenko, Steven R. Ehlert, Teruaki Enoto, Yuri Evangelista, Riccardo Ferrazzoli, Javier A. Garcia, Shuichi Gunji, Kiyoshi Hayashida, Jeremy Heyl, Wataru Iwakiri, Svetlana G. Jorstad, Vladimir Karas, Fabian Kislat, Takao Kitaguchi, Jeffery J. Kolodziejczak, Henric Krawczynski, Luca Latronico, Ioannis Liodakis, Simone Maldera, Alberto Manfreda, Frederic Marin, Andrea Marinucci, Alan P. Marscher, Francesco Massaro, Ikuyuki Mitsuishi, Tsunefumi Mizuno, Michela Negro, Chi-Yung Ng, Nicola Omodei, Chiara Oppedisano, George G. Pavlov, Abel L. Peirson, Matteo Perri, Melissa Pesce-Rollins, Pierre-Olivier Petrucci, Andrea Possenti, Simonetta Puccetti, Brian D. Ramsey. 2023-06-14. First detection of X-ray polarization from the accreting neutron star 4U 1820-303. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213%2Facec6e
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