Characterization of a dual-beam, dual-camera optical imaging polarimeter

Abstract

Polarization plays an important role in various time-domain astrophysics to understand the magnetic fields, geometry, and environments of spatially unresolved variable sources. In this paper we present the results of laboratory and on-sky testing of a novel dual-beam, dual-camera optical imaging polarimeter (MOPTOP) exploiting high sensitivity, low-noise CMOS technology and designed to monitor variable and transient sources with low systematic errors and high sensitivity. We present a data reduction algorithm that corrects for sensitivity variations between the cameras on a source-by-source basis. Using our data reduction algorithm, we show that our dual-beam, dual-camera technique delivers the benefits of low and stable instrumental polarization ($<0.05$\% for lab data and $<0.25$\% for on sky data) and high throughput while avoiding the additional sky brightness and image overlap problems associated with dual-beam, single-camera polarimeters.

12 pages, 11 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (5)

• Ten per cent polarized optical emission from GRB 090102
• The Dual-Axis Circumstellar Environment of the Type IIn Supernova 1997eg
• The RINGO2 and DIPOL Optical Polarisation Catalogue of Blazars
• Polarimetry and Photometry of Gamma-Ray Bursts with RINGO2
• Optical Polarimetry of KIC 8462852 in May-August 2017

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• WALOP-South: A Four Camera One Shot Imaging Polarimeter for PASIPHAE Survey. Paper I -- Optical Design
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• Determining the origin of the X-ray emission in blazars through multiwavelength polarization
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• PICSARR: high-precision polarimetry using CMOS image sensors
• Optical polarization of stellar-fed active and quiescent supermassive black holes
• Short timescale imaging polarimetry of geostationary satellite Thor-6: the nature of micro-glints
• Optical Polarimetry of the May 2022 Lunar Eclipse
• Optimising the observation of optical kilonovae with medium size telescopes