NASA's new Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) observatory launched on December 9, 2021, promising to open a new window on X-ray astronomy.
The mission foresees that on board there are 3 telescopes with detectors based on the innovative technology of GAS Pixel Detectors (GPD). Many researchers, teams, university professors also affiliated with INFN or INAF, with funding from the Italian Space Agency (ASI), have been able to refine and fine-tune all the necessary components that guarantee the efficient and correct functioning of these telescopes. felt in the X-band of the electromagnetic spectrum. The Italian contribution is now consolidated. In fact, it is since the 1970s that Italian experience in detectors for polarization measurements in X-rays makes the difference.
These telescopes are able to measure polarization in X-rays emitted by astronomical sources such as active galactic nuclei (AGN), microquasars, pulsars and pulsars wind nebulae, magnetars, binary stars in X-rays as well as supernova remnants. and the galactic center. The measurements that Ixpe will provide include data: on polarization, on variability, on spectra and on images. The processing of all these data allows to study the geometry and physical processes of radiation emission and acceleration of particles that usually occur in environments with extreme magnetic and gravitational fields.
Prof. Francesco Tombesi and Dr. Stefano Ciprini are part of the collaboration that worked from the beginning on the IXPE mission for the Physics Department of the University of Rome "Tor Vergata".
