XIPE: The X-ray imaging polarimetry explorer
Authors
P. Soffitta, Istituto Nazionale Di Astrofisica, Rome
R. Bellazzini, Università di Pisa
E. Bozzo, Université de Genève
V. Burwitz, MPI fuer extraterrestrische Physik
A. J. Castro-Tirado, Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía - CSIC
E. Costa, Istituto Nazionale Di Astrofisica, Rome
T. Courvoisier, Université de Genève
H. Feng, Tsinghua University
S. Gburek, Space Research Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences
R. Goosmann, Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg
V. Karas, Astronomical Institute, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic v.v.i.
G. Matt, Università degli Studi Roma Tre
F. Muleri, Istituto Nazionale Di Astrofisica, Rome
K. Nandra, MPI fuer extraterrestrische Physik
M. Pearce, The Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)
J. Poutanen, Tuorlan observatorio
V. Reglero, Universitat de València
D. Sabau Maria, Instituto Nacional de Tecnica Aeroespacial
A. Santangelo, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
G. Tagliaferri, Istituto Nazionale Di Astrofisica, Rome
C. Tenzer, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
J. Vink, Anton Pannekoek Instituut voor Sterrenkunde
M. C. Weisskopf, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
S. Zane, UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory
I. Agudo, Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía - CSIC
A. Antonelli, del Politecnico snc
P. Attina, Istituto Nazionale Di Astrofisica, Rome
L. Baldini, Università di Pisa
A. Bykov, Ioffe Institute
R. Carpentiero, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana
E. Cavazzuti, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana
E. Churazov, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics
E. Del Monte, Istituto Nazionale Di Astrofisica, Rome
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Publication Date
1-1-2016
Publication Title
Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
Description
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.
Recommended Citation
Soffitta, . (2016-01-01). XIPE: The X-ray imaging polarimetry explorer. Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering, 9905(), -.
