Speaker
Description
The Imaging X-ray Polarimeter Explorer (IXPE) has opened up a new window on the X-ray sky, with observations of nearly 100 sources. In this talk I summarize IXPE's technical advances, the challenges of polarization measurements, our successes to date and the prospects for future discovery. IXPE has obtained polarization images of a number of X-ray nebulae, including pulsar wind nebulae and supernova remnants, that are probing the particle acceleration mechanisms. IXPE is also acquiring polarized light curves and spectra of accreting neutron star and black hole systems, in various outburst and quiescent states. These results provide new insights into the neutron star surface magnetization, black hole binary disk/corona structure and the particle energization in blazar jets. Polarization measurements require high photon counts and, with IXPE's modest aperture, MAXI alerts to transients and enhanced flux states of these highly variable sources have been integral to the mission's success.
