Published in

arXiv, 2022

DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2206.07138

Nature Research, Nature Astronomy, 12(6), p. 1433-1443, 2022

DOI: 10.1038/s41550-022-01799-5

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Determination of X-ray pulsar geometry with IXPE polarimetry

Journal article published in 2022 by Victor Doroshenko ORCID, Juri Poutanen ORCID, Sergey S. Tsygankov ORCID, Valery F. Suleimanov ORCID, Matteo Bachetti ORCID, Ilaria Caiazzo ORCID, Enrico Costa, Alessandro Di Marco ORCID, Jeremy Heyl ORCID, Fabio La Monaca ORCID, Fabio Muleri ORCID, Alexander A. Mushtukov, George G. Pavlov, Brian D. Ramsey, John Rankin and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Using observations of X-ray pulsar Her X-1 by the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, we report on a highly significant ($>17σ$) detection of the polarization signal from an accreting neutron star. The observed degree of the linear polarization of $∼$10\% is found to be far below theoretical expectations for this object, and stays low throughout the spin cycle of the pulsar. Both the polarization degree and the angle exhibit variability with pulse phase, which allowed us to measure the pulsar spin position angle 57(2) deg and the magnetic obliquity 12(4) deg, which is an essential step towards detailed modelling of the intrinsic emission of X-ray pulsars. Combining our results with the optical polarimetric data, we find that the spin axis of the neutron star and the angular momentum of the binary orbit are misaligned by at least $∼$20 deg, which is a strong argument in support of the models explaining stability of the observed super-orbital variability with the precession of the neutron star.