POLAR: Final Calibration and In-Flight Performance of a Dedicated GRB Polarimeter
| Autor: | Y. J. Zhang, J. Y. Chai, Wojtek Hajdas, M. Pohl, S. W. Kong, Haoli Shi, Radoslaw Marcinkowski, L. Zhang, H. H. Xu, Ruijie Wang, Shaolin Xiong, Lu Li, D. Rapin, X. Y. Wen, A. Rutczynska, N. Gauvin, Zheng-Heng Li, Franck Cadoux, Merlin Kole, Hualin Xiao, Xue-Feng Wu, Yongwei Dong, C. Lechanoine-Leluc, A. Zwolinska, Xin Liu, Jianchao Sun, S. Orsi, J. J. He, Nicolas Produit, Tianwei Bao, Li Zhang, M. N. Kong, Jiangtao Liu, Yuan-Hao Wang, Shuang-Nan Zhang, Li-Ming Song, Dominik Rybka, M. Xu, Jie Zhang, Jacek Szabelski, T. Bernasconi, Bobing Wu, Xuezhu Zhang, T. Batsch |
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| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
Physics
Photomultiplier Earth's orbit Photon 010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences business.industry Astrophysics::High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Compton scattering Polarimetry Astrophysics::Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics FOS: Physical sciences Polarimeter Scintillator 01 natural sciences Optics 0103 physical sciences Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics business Gamma-ray burst 010303 astronomy & astrophysics Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) 0105 earth and related environmental sciences |
| DOI: | 10.48550/arxiv.1612.04098 |
| Popis: | Gamma-ray polarimetry is a new powerful tool to study the processes responsible for the emission from astrophysical sources and the environments in which this emission takes place. Few successful polarimetric measurements have however been performed thus far in the gamma-ray energy band due to the difficulties involved. POLAR is a dedicated polarimeter designed to perform high precision measurements of the polarization of the emission from gamma-ray burst in the 50-500 keV energy range. This new polarimeter is expected to detect approximately 50 gamma-ray bursts per year while performing high precision polarization measurements on approximately 10 bursts per year. The instrument was launched into lower earth orbit as part of the second Chinese space lab, the Tiangong-2, on September 15th 2016 and has been taking data successfully since being switched on one week after. The instrument uses a segmented scintillator array consisting of 1600 plastic scintillator bars, read out by 25 flat-panel multi-anode photomultipliers, to measure the Compton scattering angles of incoming photons. The small segmentation and relatively large uniform effective area allow the instrument to measure the polarization of a large number of transient events, such as gamma-ray bursts, with an unprecedented precision during its two year life-time. The final flight model underwent detailed calibration prior to launch as well as intensive space qualification tests, a summary of which will be presented in this paper. The instrument design will be discussed first followed by an overview of the on-ground tests, finally the in-orbit behavior as measured during the first weeks of the mission will be presented. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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