Concept study of a small Compton polarimeter to fly on a CubeSat
Yi-Chi Chang, Chien-Ying Yang, Hung-Hsiang Liang, Che-Yen Chu, Jeng-Lun Chiu, Chih-Hsun Lin, Philippe Laurent, Hsiang-Kuang Chang
(Submitted on 15 Nov 2019)
Application of cubesats in astronomical observations has been getting more and more mature in recent years. Here we report a concept study of a small Compton polarimeter to fly on a cubesat for observing polarization of soft gamma-rays from a black-hole X-ray binary, Cygnus X-1. Polarization states provide very useful diagnostics on the emission mechanism and the origin of those gamma rays. In our study, we conducted Monte Carlo simulations to decide the basic design of this small polarimeter. Silicon detectors and cerium bromide scintillators were employed in this study. We estimated its on-axis Compton efficiency at different energies and its data telemetry requirement when flying in a low earth orbit. Our results indicate that it is feasible to achieve high signal-to-noise ratio for observing Cyg X-1 with such a small instrument. Based on this study, we will proceed to have a more realistic design and look for opportunities of a cubesat space mission.
Comments: 8 pages, 2 figures. In Proceedings of the 12th INTEGRAL conference and 1st AHEAD Gamma-ray Workshop, Geneva (Switzerland), 11-15 February 2019, Ed. C. Ferrigno, E. Bozzo, P. von Ballmoos, to appear in the Journal of the Italian Astronomical Society
Subjects: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
Cite as: arXiv:1911.06445 [astro-ph.IM] (or arXiv:1911.06445v1 [astro-ph.IM] for this version)
Submission history
From: Hsiang-Kuang Chang
[v1] Fri, 15 Nov 2019 01:48:06 UTC (218 KB)
