A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
First Detection of Polarization in X-Rays for PSR B0540-69 and Its Nebula
Authors: Xie, Fei; Wong, Josephine; La Monaca, Fabio; Romani, Roger W.; Heyl, Jeremy; Kaaret, Philip; Di Marco, Alessandro; Bucciantini, Niccolò; Liu, Kuan; Ng, Chi-Yung; Di Lalla, Niccolò; Weisskopf, Martin C.; Costa, Enrico; Soffitta, Paolo; Muleri, Fabio; Bachetti, Matteo; Pilia, Maura; Rankin, John; Fabiani, Sergio; Agudo, Iván; Antonelli, Lucio A.; Baldini, Luca; Baumgartner, Wayne H.; Bellazzini, Ronaldo; Bianchi, Stefano; Bongiorno, Stephen D.; Bonino, Raffaella; Brez, Alessandro; Capitanio, Fiamma; Castellano, Simone; Cavazzuti, Elisabetta; Chen, Chien-Ting; Ciprini, Stefano; De Rosa, Alessandra; Del Monte, Ettore; Di Gesu, Laura; Donnarumma, Immacolata; Doroshenko, Victor; Dovčiak, Michal; Ehlert, Steven R.; Enoto, Teruaki; Evangelista, Yuri; Ferrazzoli, Riccardo; Garcia, Javier A.; Gunji, Shuichi; Hayashida, Kiyoshi; Iwakiri, Wataru; Jorstad, Svetlana G.; Karas, Vladimir; Kislat, Fabian; Kitaguchi, Takao; Kolodziejczak, Jeffery J.; Krawczynski, Henric; Latronico, Luca; Liodakis, Ioannis; Maldera, Simone; Manfreda, Alberto; Marin, Frédéric; Marinucci, Andrea; Marscher, Alan P.; Marshall, Herman L.; Massaro, Francesco; Matt, Giorgio; Mitsuishi, Ikuyuki; Mizuno, Tsunefumi; Negro, Michela; O’Dell, Stephen L.; Omodei, Nicola; Oppedisano, Chiara; Papitto, Alessandro; Pavlov, George G.; Peirson, Abel L.; Perri, Matteo; Pesce-Rollins, Melissa; Petrucci, Pierre-Olivier; Possenti, Andrea; Poutanen, Juri; Puccetti, Simonetta; Ramsey, Brian D.; Ratheesh, Ajay; Roberts, Oliver J.; Sgrò, Carmelo; Slane, Patrick; Spandre, Gloria; Swartz, Douglas A.; Tamagawa, Toru; Tavecchio, Fabrizio; Taverna, Roberto; Tawara, Yuzuru; Tennant, Allyn F.; Thomas, Nicholas E.; Tombesi, Francesco; Trois, Alessio; Tsygankov, Sergey S.; Turolla, Roberto; Vink, Jacco; Wu, Kinwah; Zane, Silvia; IXPE Collaboration; Wadiasingh, Zorawar; Ho, Wynn C. G.; Harding, Alice K.; Gendreau, Keith C.; Arzoumanian, Zaven
Publisher: Institute of Physics Publishing
Publishing place: BRISTOL
Publication year: 2024
Journal: Astrophysical Journal
Journal name in source: ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Journal acronym: ASTROPHYS J
Article number: 92
Volume: 962
Issue: 1
Number of pages: 9
ISSN: 0004-637X
eISSN: 1538-4357
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad17ba
Publication's open availability at the time of reporting: Open Access
Publication channel's open availability : Open Access publication channel
Web address : https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ad17ba
Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/387086153
Preprint address: https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.02504
Self-archived copy's licence: CC BY
Self-archived copy's version: Publisher`s PDF
We report on X-ray polarization measurements of the extragalactic Crab-like PSR B0540-69 and its Pulsar Wind Nebula (PWN) in the Large Magellanic Cloud, using a similar to 850 ks Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) exposure. The PWN is unresolved by IXPE. No statistically significant polarization is detected for the image-averaged data, giving a 99% confidence polarization upper limit (MDP99) of 5.3% in the 2-8 keV energy range. However, a phase-resolved analysis detects polarization for both the nebula and pulsar in the 4-6 keV energy range. For the PWN defined as the off-pulse phases, the polarization degree (PD) of (24.5 +/- 5.3)% and polarization angle (PA) of (78.1 +/- 6.2)degrees is detected at 4.6 sigma significance level, consistent with the PA observed in the optical band. In a single on-pulse window, a hint of polarization is measured at 3.8 sigma with PD of (50.0 +/- 13.1)% and PA of (6.2 +/- 7.4)degrees. A "simultaneous" PSR/PWN analysis finds two bins at the edges of the pulse exceeding 3 sigma PD significance, with PD of (68 +/- 20)% and (62 +/- 20)%; intervening bins at 2-3 sigma significance have lower PD, hinting at additional polarization structure.
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