Simultaneous space and phase resolved X-ray polarimetry of the Crab Pulsar and Nebula
astro-ph.HE
/ Authors
Niccolò Bucciantini, Riccardo Ferrazzoli, Matteo Bachetti, John Rankin, Niccolò Di Lalla, Carmelo Sgrò, Nicola Omodei, Takao Kitaguchi, Tsunefumi Mizuno, Shuichi Gunji
and 86 more authors
Eri Watanabe, Luca Baldini, Patrick Slane, Martin C. Weisskopf, Roger W. Romani, Andrea Possenti, Herman L. Marshall, Stefano Silvestri, Luigi Pacciani, Michela Negro, Fabio Muleri, Emma de Oña Wilhelmi, Fei Xie, Jeremy Heyl, Melissa Pesce-Rollins, Josephine Wong, Maura Pilia, Ivan Agudo, Lucio A. Antonelli, Wayne H. Baumgartner, Ronaldo Bellazzini, Stefano Bianchi,
/ Abstract
The Crab pulsar and its nebula are among the most studied astrophysical systems, and constitute one of the most promising environments where high energy processes and particle acceleration can be investigated. They are the only objects for which previous X-ray polarisation has been reported. We present here the first Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) observation of the Crab pulsar and nebula. The total pulsar pulsed emission in the [2-8] keV energy range is unpolarised. Significant polarisation up to 15% is detected only in the core of the main peak. The nebula has a total space integrated polarised degree of 20% and polarisation angle of 145deg. The polarised maps show a large variation in the local polarisation, and regions with polarised degree up to 45-50%. The polarisation pattern suggests a predominantly toroidal magnetic field.