Implementing and Verifying a Fourier Domain Approach to Fast Stochastic X-ray Polarimetry Timing
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| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| _version_ | 1866909697820327936 |
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| author | Ewing, Melissa Ingram, Adam Rankin, John Muleri, Fabio |
| author_facet | Ewing, Melissa Ingram, Adam Rankin, John Muleri, Fabio |
| contents | The launch of the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), the first space-based polarimeter since 1978, offers a two order of magnitude improvement to the measurement of X-ray polarisation than its predecessor OSO-8, offering unprecedented precision for the measurement of polarisation degree and polarisation angle of X-ray sources. This advancement lends itself to the birth of a number of contemporary techniques to study Galactic compact objects, including X-ray polarimetry-timing, the study of how polarisation properties evolve over short timescales. However, the statistical nature of polarisation measurements poses a challenge for studies on arbitrarily short timescales, as a large number of photons are required to achieve statistically significant measurements of polarisation degree and angle for time-resolved analyses. Furthermore, if the polarisation variability is stochastic, then phase-folding techniques introduce systematic errors in the phase assignment of photons. Ingram and Maccarone presented a model independent Fourier-based technique that circumvents these issues. It can be used on arbitrarily short timescales for any kind of variability, whether aperiodic, quasi-periodic or purely periodic. Here we implement this method on real IXPE data. We address several instrumental effects and test the technique on X-ray pulsars, RX-J0440.9+4431 and Hercules X-1 . We verify that our technique recovers the polarisation variability signal that we already know to be there from typical phase-folding techniques. It will now be possible to study fast stochastic polarisation variability of X-ray sources, with applications including quasi-periodic oscillations, mass accretion rate fluctuations, and reverberation mapping. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_15461 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Implementing and Verifying a Fourier Domain Approach to Fast Stochastic X-ray Polarimetry Timing Ewing, Melissa Ingram, Adam Rankin, John Muleri, Fabio High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena The launch of the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), the first space-based polarimeter since 1978, offers a two order of magnitude improvement to the measurement of X-ray polarisation than its predecessor OSO-8, offering unprecedented precision for the measurement of polarisation degree and polarisation angle of X-ray sources. This advancement lends itself to the birth of a number of contemporary techniques to study Galactic compact objects, including X-ray polarimetry-timing, the study of how polarisation properties evolve over short timescales. However, the statistical nature of polarisation measurements poses a challenge for studies on arbitrarily short timescales, as a large number of photons are required to achieve statistically significant measurements of polarisation degree and angle for time-resolved analyses. Furthermore, if the polarisation variability is stochastic, then phase-folding techniques introduce systematic errors in the phase assignment of photons. Ingram and Maccarone presented a model independent Fourier-based technique that circumvents these issues. It can be used on arbitrarily short timescales for any kind of variability, whether aperiodic, quasi-periodic or purely periodic. Here we implement this method on real IXPE data. We address several instrumental effects and test the technique on X-ray pulsars, RX-J0440.9+4431 and Hercules X-1 . We verify that our technique recovers the polarisation variability signal that we already know to be there from typical phase-folding techniques. It will now be possible to study fast stochastic polarisation variability of X-ray sources, with applications including quasi-periodic oscillations, mass accretion rate fluctuations, and reverberation mapping. |
| title | Implementing and Verifying a Fourier Domain Approach to Fast Stochastic X-ray Polarimetry Timing |
| topic | High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.15461 |