Invited seminar - Rui Curado Silva - Gamma-ray Universe Polarization Analysis with Fermi Space Telescope

Wednesday 14 Nov 2012, 13:00 → 14:00 Europe/Brussels

E/3rd floor-E.349 - Seminar room (E.349) (Marc de Hemptinne (chemin du Cyclotron, 2, Louvain-la-Neuve))

Polarimetry in astrophysics is still a quite unexplored domain in the X- and gamma-ray energy band, due to the great deal of complexity that this kind of measurement requires. To date X- and gamma-ray source emissions have been studied almost exclusively through spectral and timing variability analysis. By measuring the polarization angle and degree of linear polarization of the source emission, it will be possible to double the number of observational parameters thereby allowing better discrimination between various models. Polarimetric observations can provide important information about geometries, magnetic fields, composition and emission mechanisms in a wide variety of gamma-ray sources such as: pulsars, solar flares, active galactic nuclei, galactic black holes or gamma-ray bursts. Herein we propose the analysis of the data generated by LAT instrument in order to measure the polarization direction and degree of the most intense gamma-ray emission sources, such as the Vela, Crab and Geminga pulsars or GRB emissions.