Friday, March 29, 2013

1303.7158 (Henric Krawczynski et al.)

White Paper for Blazar Observations with a GEMS-like X-ray Polarimetry Mission    [PDF]

Henric Krawczynski, Lorella Angelini, Matthew Baring, Wayne Baumgartner, Kevin Black, Jessie Dotson, Pranab Ghosh, Alice Harding, Joanne Hill, Keith Jahoda, Phillip Kaaret, Tim Kallman, Julian Krolik, Dong Lai, Craig Markwardt, Herman Marshall, Jeffrey Martoff, Robin Morris, Takashi Okajima, Robert Petre, Juri Poutanen, Stephen Reynolds, Jeffrey Scargle, Jeremy Schnittman, Peter Serlemitsos, Yang Soong, Tod Strohmayer, Jean Swank, Yuzuru Tawara, Toru Tamagawa
In this document, we describe the scientific potential of blazar observations with a X-ray polarimetry mission like GEMS (Gravity and Extreme Magnetism SMEX). We describe five blazar science investigations that such a mission would enable: (i) the structure and the role of magnetic fields in AGN jets, (ii) analysis of the polarization of the synchrotron X-ray emission from AGN jets, (iii) discrimination between synchrotron self-Compton and external Compton models for blazars with inverse Compton emission in the X-ray band, (iv) a precision study of the polarization properties of the X-ray emission from Cen-A, (v) tests of Lorentz Invariance based on X-ray polarimetric observations of blazars. We conclude with a discussion of a straw man observation program and recommended accompanying multiwavelength observations.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.7158

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