The X-ray polarimeter of solar flares for the Interhelioprobe mission: experimental determination of the response of the physical model to polarized x-ray radiation

Abstract

The work is devoted to the study of the characteristics of the PING-M hard x-ray polarimeter using its physical model (PING-P FM). The PING-M instrument is developed jointly by the Moscow Engineering Physical Iinstitute and the Ioffe Institute for the mission “Interhelioprobe”. The operation of the device is based on Compton scattering. The degree and direction of linear polarization are determined by measuring the asymmetry of the scattered radiation field. The device uses active scatterers that register the Compton recoil electron. A useful event is the case when two impulses in the detector-scatterer and in the detector-receiver of scattered radiation coincide. The physical model represents the detector part of the polarimeter. It contains three scatterers and six receivers of scattered radiation – a total of 18 pairs of detectors oriented at different azimuthal angles. As a result of the experiments, the dependences of counting rates in pairs of detectors on the positional angle of the polarization plane of the incident radiation were measured. The modulation depth of this dependence determines the sensitivity of the device to the polarization degree. The sensitivity of the device is estimated.