High Energy Polarimetry of Prompt GRB Emission

Abstract

Evidence of polarized $\gamma$-ray emission ($>$ 50 keV) from Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) has been accumulated in recent years. Measurements have been reported with levels in the range of 30-80\%, typically with limited statistical significance. No clear picture has yet emerged with regards to the polarization properties of GRBs. Taken at face value, the data suggest that most GRBs have a relatively large level of polarization (typically, $>50\%$), which may suggest synchrotron emission associated with an ordered magnetic field structure within the GRB jet. But these results are far from conclusive. Here, we review the observations that have been made, concentrating especially on the instrumental issues and the lessons that might be learned from these data.

Accepted for publication in New Astronomy Reviews

References in corpus (10)

• The Internal-Collision-Induced Magnetic Reconnection and Turbulence (ICMART) Model of Gamma-Ray Bursts
• Polarisation studies of the prompt gamma-ray emission from GRB 041219a using the Spectrometer aboard INTEGRAL
• POLAR, a compact detector for Gamma Ray Bursts photon polarization measurements
• GRB 140206A: the most distant polarized Gamma-Ray Burst
• Polarization in the prompt emission of gamma-ray bursts and their afterglows
• Observations of the intense and ultra-long burst GRB041219a with the Germanium Spectrometer on INTEGRAL
• Compton telescope with coded aperture mask: Imaging with the INTEGRAL/IBIS Compton mode
• AstroSat CZT Imager observations of GRB 151006A: timing, spectroscopy, and polarisation study
• A method to localize gamma-ray bursts using POLAR
• Development of a micro-satellite TSUBAME for X-ray polarimetry of GRBs

Cited by in corpus (26)

• Detailed polarization measurements of the prompt emission of five Gamma-Ray Bursts
• The POLAR Gamma-Ray Burst Polarization Catalog
• Hard X-ray polarization catalog for a 5-year sample of Gamma-Ray Bursts using AstroSat CZT-Imager
• The IXPE view of GRB 221009A
• Polarimetric Analysis of the Long Duration Gamma Ray Burst GRB 160530A With the Balloon Borne Compton Spectrometer and Imager
• New constraints on Lorentz invariance violation with polarized gamma-ray bursts
• Benchmarking simulations of the Compton Spectrometer and Imager with calibrations
• Spectro-polarimetric analysis of prompt emission of GRB 160325A: jet with evolving environment of internal shocks
• Testing the Einstein's equivalence principle with polarized gamma-ray bursts
• Improved Constraints on Anisotropic Birefringent Lorentz Invariance and CPT Violation from Broadband Optical Polarimetry of High Redshift Galaxies
• Astrophysical and Cosmological Searches for Lorentz Invariance Violation
• Tests of Lorentz Invariance
• Precision Test of the Weak Equivalence Principle from Gamma-Ray Burst Polarization
• A detailed time-resolved and energy-resolved spectro-polarimetric study of bright GRBs detected by AstroSat CZTI in its first year of operation
• X-ray burst and persistent emission properties of the magnetar SGR 1830-0645 in outburst
• Prospects of measuring Gamma-ray Burst Polarisation with the Daksha mission
• Exploring GRBs and supernovae connection: does a superluminous hypernova population exist?
• Phase-resolved gamma-ray spectroscopy of the Crab pulsar observed by POLAR
• Gamma-Ray Burst Polarimetry with the COMCUBE-S CubeSat Swarm -- Design and Performance Simulations
• Gamma-ray Polarimetry of Transient Sources with POLAR
• Adding Gamma-ray Polarimetry to the Multi-Messenger Era
• Data Analysis for a Balloon Borne Compton Polarimeter
• An electromagnetic physics constructor for low energy polarised X-/gamma ray transport in Geant4
• Design and preliminary performance study of the broad-band spectrometer detector for POLAR-2
• Gamma-ray burst localisation strategies for the SPHiNX hard X-ray polarimeter
• Episode-wise spectro-polarimetry of GRB 220107A: Testing the hypothesis of evolving radiation mechanisms