DOI

  • Jacco Vink
  • Dmitry Prokhorov
  • Riccardo Ferrazzoli
  • Patrick Slane
  • Ping Zhou
  • Kazunori Asakura
  • Luca Baldini
  • Niccoló Bucciantini
  • Enrico Costa
  • Alessandro Di Marco
  • Jeremy Heyl
  • Frédéric Marin
  • Tsunefumi Mizuno
  • C.-Y. Ng
  • Melissa Pesce-Rollins
  • Brian D. Ramsey
  • John Rankin
  • Ajay Ratheesh
  • Carmelo Sgró
  • Paolo Soffitta
  • Douglas A. Swartz
  • Toru Tamagawa
  • Martin C. Weisskopf
  • Yi-Jung Yang
  • Ronaldo Bellazzini
  • Raffaella Bonino
  • Elisabetta Cavazzuti
  • Luigi Costamante
  • Niccoló Di Lalla
  • Luca Latronico
  • Simone Maldera
  • Alberto Manfreda
  • Francesco Massaro
  • Ikuyuki Mitsuishi
  • Nicola Omodei
  • Chiara Oppedisano
  • Silvia Zane
  • Ivan Agudo
  • Lucio A. Antonelli
  • Matteo Bachetti
  • Wayne H. Baumgartner
  • Stefano Bianchi
  • Stephen D. Bongiorno
  • Alessandro Brez
  • Fiamma Capitanio
  • Simone Castellano
  • Stefano Ciprini
  • Alessandra De Rosa
  • Ettore Del Monte
  • Laura Di Gesu
  • Immacolata Donnarumma
  • Victor Doroshenko
  • Michal Dovčiak
  • Steven R. Ehlert
  • Teruaki Enoto
  • Yuri Evangelista
  • Sergio Fabiani
  • Javier A. Garcia
  • Shuichi Gunji
  • Kiyoshi Hayashida
  • Wataru Iwakiri
  • Vladimir Karas
  • Takao Kitaguchi
  • Jeffery J. Kolodziejczak
  • Henric Krawczynski
  • Fabio La Monaca
  • Ioannis Liodakis
  • Andrea Marinucci
  • Alan P. Marscher
  • Herman L. Marshall
  • Giorgio Matt
  • Fabio Muleri
  • Stephen L. O’Dell
  • Alessandro Papitto
  • George G. Pavlov
  • Abel L. Peirson
  • Matteo Perri
  • Maura Pilia
  • Andrea Possenti
  • Juri Poutanen
  • Simonetta Puccetti
  • Roger W. Romani
  • Gloria Spandre
  • Fabrizio Tavecchio
  • Roberto Taverna
  • Yuzuru Tawara
  • Allyn F. Tennant
  • Nicolas E. Thomas
  • Francesco Tombesi
  • Alessio Trois
  • Sergey Tsygankov
  • Roberto Turolla
  • Kinwah Wu
  • Fei Xie
We report on a ∼5σ detection of polarized 3–6 keV X-ray emission from the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A) with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE). The overall polarization degree of 1.8% ± 0.3% is detected by summing over a large region, assuming circular symmetry for the polarization vectors. The measurements imply an average polarization degree for the synchrotron component of ∼2.5%, and close to 5% for the X-ray synchrotron-dominated forward shock region. These numbers are based on an assessment of the thermal and nonthermal radiation contributions, for which we used a detailed spatial-spectral model based on Chandra X-ray data. A pixel-by-pixel search for polarization provides a few tentative detections from discrete regions at the ∼ 3σ confidence level. Given the number of pixels, the significance is insufficient to claim a detection for individual pixels, but implies considerable turbulence on scales smaller than the angular resolution. Cas A’s X-ray continuum emission is dominated by synchrotron radiation from regions within ≲1017 cm of the forward and reverse shocks. We find that (i) the measured polarization angle corresponds to a radially oriented magnetic field, similar to what has been inferred from radio observations; (ii) the X-ray polarization degree is lower than in the radio band (∼5%). Since shock compression should impose a tangential magnetic-field structure, the IXPE results imply that magnetic fields are reoriented within ∼1017 cm of the shock. If the magnetic-field alignment is due to locally enhanced acceleration near quasi-parallel shocks, the preferred X-ray polarization angle suggests a size of 3 × 1016 cm for cells with radial magnetic fields.
Original languageEnglish
JournalThe Astrophysical Journal
Volume938
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2022

ID: 104696889