Detection of polarized gamma-ray emission from the Crab nebula with the Hitomi Soft Gamma-ray Detector

Felix Aharonian, Hiroki Akamatsu, Fumie Akimoto, Steven W Allen, Lorella Angelini, Marc Audard, Hisamitsu Awaki, Magnus Axelsson, Aya Bamba, Marshall W Bautz, Roger Blandford, Laura W Brenneman, Gregory V Brown, Esra Bulbul, Edward M Cackett, Maria Chernyakova, Meng P Chiao, Paolo S Coppi, Elisa Costantini, Jelle de Plaa, Cor P de Vries, Jan-Willem den Herder, Chris Done, Tadayasu Dotani, Ken Ebisawa, Megan E Eckart, Teruaki Enoto, Yuichiro Ezoe, Andrew C Fabian, Carlo Ferrigno, Adam R Foster, Ryuichi Fujimoto, Yasushi Fukazawa, Akihiro Furuzawa, Massimiliano Galeazzi, Luigi C Gallo, Poshak Gandhi, Margherita Giustini, Andrea Goldwurm, Liyi Gu, Matteo Guainazzi, Yoshito Haba, Kouichi Hagino, Kenji Hamaguchi, Ilana M Harrus, Isamu Hatsukade, Katsuhiro Hayashi, Takayuki Hayashi, Kiyoshi Hayashida, Junko S Hiraga, Ann Hornschemeier, Akio Hoshino, John P Hughes, Yuto Ichinohe, Ryo Iizuka, Hajime Inoue, Yoshiyuki Inoue, Manabu Ishida, Kumi Ishikawa, Yoshitaka Ishisaki, Masachika Iwai, Jelle Kaastra, Tim Kallman, Tsuneyoshi Kamae, Jun Kataoka, Satoru Katsuda, Nobuyuki Kawai, Richard L Kelley, Caroline A Kilbourne, Takao Kitaguchi, Shunji Kitamoto, Tetsu Kitayama, Takayoshi Kohmura, Motohide Kokubun, Katsuji Koyama, Shu Koyama, Peter Kretschmar, Hans A Krimm, Aya Kubota, Hideyo Kunieda, Philippe Laurent, Shiu-Hang Lee, Maurice A Leutenegger, Olivier Limousin, Michael Loewenstein, Knox S Long, David Lumb, Greg Madejski, Yoshitomo Maeda, Daniel Maier, Kazuo Makishima, Maxim Markevitch, Hironori Matsumoto, Kyoko Matsushita, Dan McCammon, Brian R McNamara, Missagh Mehdipour, Eric D Miller, Jon M Miller, Shin Mineshige

Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan · 2018

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Summary

Abstract We present the results from the Hitomi Soft Gamma-ray Detector (SGD) observation of the Crab nebula. The main part of SGD is a Compton camera, which in addition to being a spectrometer, is capable of measuring polarization of gamma-ray photons. The Crab nebula is one of the brightest X-ray/gamma-ray sources on the sky, and the only source from which polarized X-ray photons have been detected. SGD observed the Crab nebula during the initial test observation phase of Hitomi. We performed data analysis of the SGD observation, SGD background estimation, and SGD Monte Carlo simulations, and successfully detected polarized gamma-ray emission from the Crab nebula with only about 5 ks exposure time. The obtained polarization fraction of the phase-integrated Crab emission (sum of pulsar an

Source type: Peer-reviewed study
DOI: 10.1093/pasj/psy118
Catalogue ID: SNmoic26fg-hhfwjv

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