Observations of the Stellar Mass Black Hole Cygnus X-1 with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer
: Rodriguez Cavero Nicole, Krawczynski Henric, Muleri Fabio, Dovčiak Michal, Veledina Alexandra, Svoboda Jiri, Ingram Adam, Matt Giorgio, Garcia Javier, Loktev Vladislav, Negro Michela, Poutanen Juri, Kitaguchi Takao, Podgorny Jakub, Rankin John, Zhang Wenda; Cygnus X-1 Topical Working Group
Publisher: American Institute of Physics
: 2023
: Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society
: HEAD20 Abstracts : The 20th Meeting of the High Energy Astrophysics Division
: 55
: 4
: 0002-7537
: https://baas.aas.org/pub/2023n4i109p06/release/1
: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/387034398
X-ray polarization observations allow us to test accretion disk, corona, and emission models of stellar mass black holes in X-ray binaries. The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), launched on December 9, 2021, enables X-ray polarimetric observations with unprecedented sensitivity in the 2—8 keV energy range. We report here on the first IXPE observation of the black hole Cygnus X-1. We accompanied the May 2022 campaign with simultaneous Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), and INTErnational Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory (INTEGRAL) coverage to decompose the IXPE energy spectra into thermal disk, coronal, and reflection components. Furthermore, we present the implications of the polarization signature of Cygnus X-1 on the radio jet, the coronal geometry, and the inner accretion flow orientation.
