2019/05/31 by Asakura, Kazunori, Hayashida, Kiyoshi, Hanasaka, Takashi +9 · 1 citation
#FOS: Physical sciences #Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1906.00012
X-ray polarimetry in astronomy has not been exploited well, despite its importance. The recent innovation of instruments is changing this situation. We focus on a complementary MOS (CMOS) pixel detector with small pixel size and employ it as an x-ray photoelectron tracking polarimeter. The CMOS detector we employ is developed by GPixel Inc., and has a pixel size of 2.5 \mathrmμm × 2.5 \mathrmμm. Although it is designed for visible light, we succeed in detecting x-ray photons with an energy resolution of 176 eV (FWHM) at 5.9 keV at room temperature and the atmospheric condition. We measure the x-ray detection efficiency and polarimetry sensitivity by irradiating polarized monochromatic x-rays at BL20B2 in SPring-8, the synchrotron radiation facility in Japan. We obtain modulation factors of 7.63% ± 0.07% and 15.5% ± 0.4% at 12.4 keV and 24.8 keV, respectively. It demonstrates that this sensor can be used as an x-ray imaging spectrometer and polarimeter with the highest spatial resolution ever tested.