Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 1994 · 33 citations · 0 references
Natural SciencesAstronomyRadiation MeasurementStellar AstronomyX-ray AstronomyPolarization OpticsX-ray DetectionX-ray DetectorsX-ray OpticsX-ray PolarimetryX-ray SpectroscopyLinear PolarizationLinear Polarization MeasurementPolarimeter DesignPolarizationPolarization SensitivityPolarization-sensitive DetectorsStellar X-ray RadiationX-ray Polarization Measurements
The Stellar X-ray Polarimeter (SXRP) will be the third orbiting stellar x-ray polarimeter, and should provide an order of magnitude increase in polarization sensitivity over its predecessors. The SXRP exploits the polarization dependence of reflection from a graphite Bragg crystal and scattering from a lithium Thomson scattering target to measure the linear polarization of x- rays from astrophysical sources. In this paper, we review the status of the SXRP instrument.