PolarLight is a space-borne X-ray polarimeter that measures the X-ray polarization via electron tracking in an ionization chamber.It is a collimated instrument and thus suffers from the background on the whole detecto...PolarLight is a space-borne X-ray polarimeter that measures the X-ray polarization via electron tracking in an ionization chamber.It is a collimated instrument and thus suffers from the background on the whole detector plane.The majority of background events are induced by high energy charged particles and show ionization morphologies distinct from those produced by X-rays of interest.Comparing on-source and off-source observations,we find that the two datasets display different distributions on image properties.The boundaries between the source and background distributions are obtained and can be used for background discrimination.Such a means can remove over 70%of the background events measured with PolarLight.This approaches the theoretical upper limit of the background fraction that is removable and justifies its effectiveness.For observations with the Crab nebula,the background contamination decreases from 25%to 8%after discrimination,indicative of a polarimetric sensitivity of around 0.2 Crab for PolarLight.This work also provides insights into future X-ray polarimetric telescopes.展开更多
基金funding support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant Nos.11633003,12025301 and 11821303)the CAS Strategic Priority Program on Space Science(Grant No.XDA15020501-02)the National Key R&D Project(Grant Nos.2018YFA0404502 and 2016YFA040080X)。
文摘PolarLight is a space-borne X-ray polarimeter that measures the X-ray polarization via electron tracking in an ionization chamber.It is a collimated instrument and thus suffers from the background on the whole detector plane.The majority of background events are induced by high energy charged particles and show ionization morphologies distinct from those produced by X-rays of interest.Comparing on-source and off-source observations,we find that the two datasets display different distributions on image properties.The boundaries between the source and background distributions are obtained and can be used for background discrimination.Such a means can remove over 70%of the background events measured with PolarLight.This approaches the theoretical upper limit of the background fraction that is removable and justifies its effectiveness.For observations with the Crab nebula,the background contamination decreases from 25%to 8%after discrimination,indicative of a polarimetric sensitivity of around 0.2 Crab for PolarLight.This work also provides insights into future X-ray polarimetric telescopes.
