Further Development of Event-Based Analysis of X-ray Polarization Data

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteur principal: Marshall, Herman L.
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2023
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author Marshall, Herman L.
author_facet Marshall, Herman L.
contents An event-based maximum likelihood method for handling X-ray polarimetry data is extended to include the effects of background and nonuniform sampling of the possible position angle space. While nonuniform sampling in position angle space generally introduces cross terms in the uncertainties of polarization parameters that could create degeneracies, there are interesting cases that engender no bias or parameter covariance. When including background in Poisson-based likelihood formulation, the formula for the minimum detectable polarization (MDP) has nearly the same form as for the case of Gaussian statistics derived by Elsner et al. (2012) in the limiting case of an unpolarized signal. A polarized background is also considered, which demonstrably increases uncertainties in source polarization measurements. In addition, a Kolmogorov-style test of the event position angle distribution is proposed that can provide an unbinned test of models where the polarization angle in Stokes space depends on event characteristics such as time or energy.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2310_20196
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Further Development of Event-Based Analysis of X-ray Polarization Data
Marshall, Herman L.
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
An event-based maximum likelihood method for handling X-ray polarimetry data is extended to include the effects of background and nonuniform sampling of the possible position angle space. While nonuniform sampling in position angle space generally introduces cross terms in the uncertainties of polarization parameters that could create degeneracies, there are interesting cases that engender no bias or parameter covariance. When including background in Poisson-based likelihood formulation, the formula for the minimum detectable polarization (MDP) has nearly the same form as for the case of Gaussian statistics derived by Elsner et al. (2012) in the limiting case of an unpolarized signal. A polarized background is also considered, which demonstrably increases uncertainties in source polarization measurements. In addition, a Kolmogorov-style test of the event position angle distribution is proposed that can provide an unbinned test of models where the polarization angle in Stokes space depends on event characteristics such as time or energy.
title Further Development of Event-Based Analysis of X-ray Polarization Data
topic Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.20196