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 and nebula emissions) is (22.1%±10.6%), and the polarization angle is 110°.7 + 13°.2/-13°.0 in the energy range of 60.160 keV (the errors correspond to the 1 σ deviation). The confidence level of the polarization detection was 99.3%. The polarization angle measured by SGD is about one sigma deviation with the projected spin axis of the pulsar, 124°.0 ± 0°.0.1.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 113 |
| Journal | Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan |
| Volume | 70 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2018 Dec 1 |
Keywords
- Instrumentation: polarimeters
- Polarization-X-rays: individual (Crab)
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Space and Planetary Science
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In: Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan, Vol. 70, No. 6, 113, 01.12.2018.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Detection of polarized gamma-ray emission from the Crab nebula with the Hitomi Soft Gamma-ray Detector
AU - Hitomi Collaboration
AU - Aharonian, Felix
AU - Akamatsu, Hiroki
AU - Akimoto, Fumie
AU - Allen, Steven W.
AU - Angelini, Lorella
AU - Audard, Marc
AU - Awaki, Hisamitsu
AU - Axelsson, Magnus
AU - Bamba, Aya
AU - Bautz, Marshall W.
AU - Blandford, Roger
AU - Brenneman, Laura W.
AU - Brown, Gregory V.
AU - Bulbul, Esra
AU - Cackett, Edward M.
AU - Chernyakova, Maria
AU - Chiao, Meng P.
AU - Coppi, Paolo S.
AU - Costantini, Elisa
AU - De Plaa, Jelle
AU - De Vries, Cor P.
AU - Den Herder, Jan Willem
AU - Done, Chris
AU - Dotani, Tadayasu
AU - Ebisawa, Ken
AU - Eckart, Megan E.
AU - Enoto, Teruaki
AU - Ezoe, Yuichiro
AU - Fabian, Andrew C.
AU - Ferrigno, Carlo
AU - Foster, Adam R.
AU - Fujimoto, Ryuichi
AU - Fukazawa, Yasushi
AU - Furuzawa, Akihiro
AU - Galeazzi, Massimiliano
AU - Gallo, Luigi C.
AU - Gandhi, Poshak
AU - Giustini, Margherita
AU - Goldwurm, Andrea
AU - Gu, Liyi
AU - Guainazzi, Matteo
AU - Haba, Yoshito
AU - Hagino, Kouichi
AU - Hamaguchi, Kenji
AU - Harrus, Ilana M.
AU - Hatsukade, Isamu
AU - Hayashi, Katsuhiro
AU - Hayashi, Takayuki
AU - Hayashida, Kiyoshi
AU - Kubota, Aya
N1 - Funding Information: We thank all the JAXA members who have contributed to the ASTRO-H (Hitomi) project. All US members gratefully acknowledge support through the NASA Science Mission Directorate. The Stanford and SLAC members acknowledge support via DoE contract to SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory DE-AC3-76SF00515 and NASA grant NNX15AM19G. Part of this work was performed under the auspices of the US DoE by LLNL under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. Support from the European Space Agency is gratefully acknowledged. The French members acknowledge support from CNES, the Centre National d’Études Spatiales. SRON is supported by NWO, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. The Swiss team acknowledges the support of the Swiss Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI). The Canadian Space Agency is acknowledged for the support of the Canadian members. We acknowledge support from JSPS/MEXT KAKENHI grant numbers 15H00773, 15H00785, 15H02090, 15H03639, 15H05438, 15K05107, 15K17610, 15K17657, 16J02333, 16H00949, 16H06342, 16K05295, 16K05296, 16K05300, 16K13787, 16K17672, 16K17673, 17H02864, 17K05393, 17J04197, 21659292, 23340055, 23340071, 23540280, 24105007, 24244014. 24540232, 25105516, 25109004, 25247028, 25287042, 25287059, 25400236, 25800119, 26109506, 26220703, 26400228, 26610047, 26800102, 26800160, JP15H02070, JP15H03641, JP15H03642, JP15H06896, JP16H03983, JP16K05296, JP16K05309, and JP16K17667. The following NASA grants are acknowledged: NNX15AC76G, NNX15AE16G, NNX15AK71G, NNX15AU54G, NNX15AW94G, and NNG15PP48P to Eureka Scientific. This work was partly supported by Leading Initiative for Excellent Young Researchers, MEXT, Japan, and also by the Research Fellowship of JSPS for Young Scientists. H. Akamatsu acknowledges the support of NWO via a Veni grant. C. Done acknowledges STFC funding under grant ST/L00075X/1. A. Fabian and C. Pinto acknowledge ERC Advanced Grant 340442. P. Gandhi acknowledges a JAXA International Top Young Fellowship and UK Science and Technology Funding Council (STFC) grant ST/J003697/2. Y. Ichinohe, K. Nobukawa, and H. Seta are supported by the Research Fellow of JSPS for Young Scientists program. N. Kawai is supported by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas “New Developments in Astrophysics Through Multi-Messenger Observations of Gravitational Wave Sources.” S. Kitamoto is partially supported by the MEXT Supported Program for the Strategic Research Foundation at Private Universities, 2014– 2018. B. McNamara and S. Safi-Harb acknowledge support from NSERC. T. Dotani, T. Takahashi, T. Tamagawa, M. Tsujimoto, and Y. Uchiyama acknowledge support from the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas “Nuclear Matter in Neutron Stars Investigated by Experiments and Astronomical Observations.” N. Werner is supported by the Lendület LP2016-11 grant from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. D. Wilkins is supported by NASA through Einstein Fellowship grant number PF6-170160, awarded by the Chandra X-ray Center and operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for NASA under contract NAS8-03060. Funding Information: We thank all the JAXA members who have contributed to the ASTRO-H (Hitomi) project. All US members gratefully acknowledge support through the NASA Science Mission Directorate. The Stanford and SLAC members acknowledge support via DoE contract to SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory DE-AC3-76SF00515 and NASA grant NNX15AM19G. Part of this work was performed under the auspices of the US DoE by LLNL under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. Support from the European Space Agency is gratefully acknowledged. The French members acknowledge support from CNES, the Centre National d'?tudes Spatiales. SRON is supported by NWO, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. The Swiss team acknowledges the support of the Swiss Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI). The Canadian Space Agency is acknowledged for the support of the Canadian members. We acknowledge support from JSPS/MEXT KAKENHI grant numbers H00773, 15H00785, 15H02090 15H03639, 15H05438, 15K05107, 15K17610, 15K17657 16J02333, 16H00949, 16H06342, 16K05295, 16K05296 16K05300, 16K13787, 16K17672, 16K17673, 17H02864 17K05393, 17J04197, 21659292, 23340055, 23340071, 23540280 24105007, 24244014. 24540232, 25105516, 25109004, 25247028 25287042, 25287059, 25400236, 25800119, 26109506, 26220703 26400228, 26610047, 26800102, 26800160, JP15H02070 JP15H03641, JP15H03642, JP15H06896, JP16H03983 JP16K05296, JP16K05309, and JP16K17667. The following NASA grants are acknowledged: NNX15AC76G, NNX15AE16G NNX15AK71G, NNX15AU54G, NNX15AW94G, and NNG15PP48P to Eureka Scientific. This work was partly supported by Leading Initiative for Excellent Young Researchers MEXT, Japan, and also by the Research Fellowship of JSPS for Young Scientists. H. Akamatsu acknowledges the support of NWO via a Veni grant. C. Done acknowledges STFC funding under grant ST/L00075X/1. A. Fabian and C. Pinto acknowledge ERC Advanced Grant 340442. P. Gandhi acknowledges a JAXA International Top Young Fellowship and UK Science and Technology Funding Council (STFC) grant ST/J003697/2. Y. Ichinohe, K. Nobukawa, and H. Seta are supported by the Research Fellow of JSPS for Young Scientists program. N. Kawai is supported by the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas "New Developments in Astrophysics Through Multi-Messenger Observations of Gravitational Wave Sources." S. Kitamoto is partially supported by the MEXT Supported Program for the Strategic Research Foundation at Private Universities, 2014-2018. B. McNamara and S. Safi-Harb acknowledge support from NSERC. T. Dotani, T. Takahashi, T. Tamagawa, M. Tsujimoto and Y. Uchiyama acknowledge support from the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas "NuclearMatter in Neutron Stars Investigated by Experiments and Astronomical Observations." N. Werner is supported by the Lend?let LP2016-11 grant from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. D. Wilkins is supported by NASA through Einstein Fellowship grant number PF6-170160, awarded by the Chandra X-ray Center and operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for NASA under contract NAS8-03060. Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2018.
PY - 2018/12/1
Y1 - 2018/12/1
N2 - 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 and nebula emissions) is (22.1%±10.6%), and the polarization angle is 110°.7 + 13°.2/-13°.0 in the energy range of 60.160 keV (the errors correspond to the 1 σ deviation). The confidence level of the polarization detection was 99.3%. The polarization angle measured by SGD is about one sigma deviation with the projected spin axis of the pulsar, 124°.0 ± 0°.0.1.
AB - 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 and nebula emissions) is (22.1%±10.6%), and the polarization angle is 110°.7 + 13°.2/-13°.0 in the energy range of 60.160 keV (the errors correspond to the 1 σ deviation). The confidence level of the polarization detection was 99.3%. The polarization angle measured by SGD is about one sigma deviation with the projected spin axis of the pulsar, 124°.0 ± 0°.0.1.
KW - Instrumentation: polarimeters
KW - Polarization-X-rays: individual (Crab)
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85069453486&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85069453486&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/pasj/psy118
DO - 10.1093/pasj/psy118
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85069453486
SN - 0004-6264
VL - 70
JO - Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan
JF - Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan
IS - 6
M1 - 113
ER -