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arxiv: 2206.07138 · v3 · pith:PYMSBHPLnew · submitted 2022-06-14 · 🌌 astro-ph.HE

Determination of X-ray pulsar geometry with IXPE polarimetry

Victor Doroshenko , Juri Poutanen , Sergey S. Tsygankov , Valery F. Suleimanov , Matteo Bachetti , Ilaria Caiazzo , Enrico Costa , Alessandro Di Marco
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Jeremy Heyl Fabio La Monaca Fabio Muleri Alexander A. Mushtukov George G. Pavlov Brian D. Ramsey John Rankin Andrea Santangelo Paolo Soffitta R\"udiger Staubert Martin C. Weisskopf Silvia Zane Iv\'an Agudo Lucio A. Antonelli Luca Baldini Wayne H. Baumgartner Ronaldo Bellazzini Stefano Bianchi Stephen D. Bongiorno Raffaella Bonino Alessandro Brez Niccol\`o Bucciantini Fiamma Capitanio Simone Castellano Elisabetta Cavazzuti Stefano Ciprini Alessandra De Rosa Ettore Del Monte Laura Di Gesu Niccol\`o Di Lalla Immacolata Donnarumma Michal Dovciak Steven R. Ehlert Teruaki Enoto Yuri Evangelista Sergio Fabiani Riccardo Ferrazzoli Javier A. Garcia Shuichi Gunji Kiyoshi Hayashida Wataru Iwakiri Svetlana G. Jorstad Vladimir Karas Takao Kitaguchi Jeffery J. Kolodziejczak Henric Krawczynski Luca Latronico Ioannis Liodakis Simone Maldera Alberto Manfreda Fr\'ed\'eric Marin Andrea Marinucci Alan P. Marscher Herman L. Marshall Giorgio Matt Ikuyuki Mitsuishi Tsunefumi Mizuno C.-Y. Ng Stephen L. O'Dell Nicola Omodei Chiara Oppedisano Alessandro Papitto Abel L. Peirson Matteo Perri Melissa Pesce-Rollins Maura Pilia Andrea Possenti Simonetta Puccetti Ajay Ratheesh Roger W. Romani Carmelo Sgr\`o Patrick Slane Gloria Spandre Rashid A. Sunyaev Toru Tamagawa Fabrizio Tavecchio Roberto Taverna Yuzuru Tawara Allyn F. Tennant Nicolas E. Thomas Francesco Tombesi Alessio Trois Roberto Turolla Jacco Vink Kinwah Wu Fei Xie
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keywords pulsarx-rayneutronpolarizationspinstarangledegree
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Using observations of X-ray pulsar Her X-1 by the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, we report on a highly significant ($>17\sigma$) detection of the polarization signal from an accreting neutron star. The observed degree of the linear polarization of $\sim$10\% is found to be far below theoretical expectations for this object, and stays low throughout the spin cycle of the pulsar. Both the polarization degree and the angle exhibit variability with pulse phase, which allowed us to measure the pulsar spin position angle 57(2) deg and the magnetic obliquity 12(4) deg, which is an essential step towards detailed modelling of the intrinsic emission of X-ray pulsars. Combining our results with the optical polarimetric data, we find that the spin axis of the neutron star and the angular momentum of the binary orbit are misaligned by at least $\sim$20 deg, which is a strong argument in support of the models explaining stability of the observed super-orbital variability with the precession of the neutron star.

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Cited by 2 Pith papers

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