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XIPE: The X-ray imaging polarimetry explorer
Conference paper

XIPE: The X-ray imaging polarimetry explorer

P. Soffitta, R. Bellazzini, E. Bozzo, V. Burwitz, A.J. Castro-Tirado, E. Costa, T. Courvoisier, H. Feng, S. Gburek, R. Goosmann, …
Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering, Vol.9905, 990515
2016

Abstract

Gas Pixel Detector Polarimetry X-ray Astronomy X-ray optics Electronic Optical and Magnetic Materials Condensed Matter Physics Computer Science Applications Applied Mathematics Electrical and Electronic Engineering
XIPE, the X-ray Imaging Polarimetry Explorer, is a mission dedicated to X-ray Astronomy. At the time of writing XIPE is in a competitive phase A as fourth medium size mission of ESA (M4). It promises to reopen the polarimetry window in high energy Astrophysics after more than 4 decades thanks to a detector that efficiently exploits the photoelectric effect and to X-ray optics with large effective area. XIPE uniqueness is time-spectrally-spatially-resolved X-ray polarimetry as a breakthrough in high energy astrophysics and fundamental physics. Indeed the payload consists of three Gas Pixel Detectors at the focus of three X-ray optics with a total effective area larger than one XMM mirror but with a low weight. The payload is compatible with the fairing of the Vega launcher. XIPE is designed as an observatory for X-ray astronomers with 75 % of the time dedicated to a Guest Observer competitive program and it is organized as a consortium across Europe with main contributions from Italy, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom, Poland, Sweden.
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https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2233046View
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