Maximum Likelihood Compton Polarimetry with the Compton Spectrometer and Imager

Abstract

Astrophysical polarization measurements in the soft gamma-ray band are becoming more feasible as detectors with high position and energy resolution are deployed. Previous work has shown that the minimum detectable polarization (MDP) of an ideal Compton polarimeter can be improved by $\sim 21\%$ when an unbinned, maximum likelihood method is used instead of the standard approach of fitting a sinusoid to a histogram of azimuthal scattering angles. Here we outline a procedure for implementing this maximum likelihood approach for real, non-ideal polarimeters. As an example, we use the recent observation of GRB 160530A with the Compton Spectrometer and Imager. We find that the MDP for this observation is reduced by $20\%$ when the maximum likelihood method is used instead of the standard method.

This paper is meant to accompany another paper by the same authors: "Polarimetric Analysis of the Long Duration Gamma Ray Burst GRB 160530A With the Balloon Borne Compton Spectrometer and Imager"

References in corpus (12)

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• Prompt emission polarimetry of Gamma Ray Bursts with ASTROSAT CZT-Imager
• Observations of a GX 301-2 Apastron Flare with the X-Calibur Hard X-Ray Polarimeter Supported by NICER, the Swift XRT and BAT, and Fermi GBM
• Detection of the 511 keV Galactic positron annihilation line with COSI
• Polarimetric Analysis of the Long Duration Gamma Ray Burst GRB 160530A With the Balloon Borne Compton Spectrometer and Imager
• Feasibility of Observing Gamma-ray Polarization from Cygnus X-1 Using a CubeSat
• Soft gamma-ray polarimetry with COSI using maximum likelihood analysis
• Compton Telescopes for Gamma-ray Astrophysics
• Hard X-ray Polarimetry -- An overview of the method, science drivers and recent findings