Abstract
We describe a technique for measuring the polarization of hard x-rays from γ-ray bursts based on the angular distribution of that portion of the flux which is scattered off the top of the Earth’s atmosphere. The scattering cross section depends not only on the scatter angle itself, but on the orientation of the scatter angle with respect to the incident polarization vector. Consequently, the distribution of the observed albedo flux will depend on the direction and the polarization properties (i.e., the level of polarization and polarization angle) of the source. Although the BATSE design (with its large field-of-view for each detector) is not optimized for albedo polarimetry, we have nonetheless investigated the feasibility of this technique using BATSE data.
Department
Space Science Center, Physics
Publication Date
1996
Journal Title
AIP Conference Proceedings
Publisher
AIP Publishing
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
10.1063/1.51605
Document Type
Conference Proceeding
Recommended Citation
Using BATSE to measure gamma-ray burst polarization McConnell, M. and Forrest, D. and Vestrand, W. T. and Finger, M., AIP Conference Proceedings, 384, 851-855 (1996), DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.51605
Rights
© 1996 American Institute of Physics