X-Ray Polarization of the BL Lacertae Type Blazar 1ES 0229+200

• DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ad05c4
• Publication Date: 2023-12-06T09:23:31Z
• Authors: Steven R. Ehlert; Ioannis Liodakis; Riccardo Middei; Alan P. Marscher; Fabrizio Tavecchio; Iván Agudo; Pouya M. Kouch; Elina Lindfors; Kari Nilsson; Ioannis Myserlis; Mark Gurwell; Ramprasad Rao; Francisco José Ac...; Giacomo Bonnoli; Víctor Casanova; Beatriz Agís-Gonz...; Juan Escudero; César Husillos; Jorge Otero Santos; Alfredo Sota; Emmanouil Angelakis; Alexander Kraus; Garrett K. Keating; Lucio A. Antonelli; Matteo Bachetti; Luca Baldini; Wayne H. Baumgartner; Ronaldo Bellazzini; Stefano Bianchi; Stephen D. Bongiorno; Raffaella Bonino; Alessandro Brez; Niccoló Bucciantini; Fiamma Capitanio; Simone Castellano; Elisabetta Cavazzuti; Chien-Ting Chen; Stefano Ciprini; Enrico Costa; Alessandra De Rosa; Ettore Del Monte; Laura Di Gesu; Niccoló Di Lalla; Alessandro Di Marco; Immacolata Donnar...; Victor Doroshenko; Michal Dovčiak; Teruaki Enoto; Yuri Evangelista; Sergio Fabiani; Riccardo Ferrazzoli; Javier A. Garcia; Shuichi Gunji; Kiyoshi Hayashida; Jeremy Heyl; Wataru Iwakiri; Svetlana G. Jorstad; Philip Kaaret; Vladimir Karas; Fabian Kislat; Takao Kitaguchi; Jeffery J. Kolodz...; Henric Krawczynski; Fabio La Monaca; Luca Latronico; Simone Maldera; Alberto Manfreda; Frédéric Marin; Andrea Marinucci; Herman L. Marshall; Francesco Massaro; Giorgio Matt; Ikuyuki Mitsuishi; Tsunefumi Mizuno; Fabio Muleri; Michela Negro; C.-Y. Ng; Stephen L. O’Dell; Nicola Omodei; Chiara Oppedisano; Alessandro Papitto; George G. Pavlov; Abel L. Peirson; Matteo Perri; Melissa Pesce-Rol...; Pierre-Olivier Pe...; Maura Pilia; Andrea Possenti; Juri Poutanen; Simonetta Puccetti; Brian D. Ramsey; John Rankin; Ajay Ratheesh; Oliver J. Roberts; Roger W. Romani; Carmelo Sgró; Patrick Slane; Paolo Soffitta; Gloria Spandre; Douglas A. Swartz; Toru Tamagawa; Roberto Taverna; Yuzuru Tawara; Allyn F. Tennant; Nicholas E. Thomas; Francesco Tombesi; Alessio Trois; Sergey S. Tsygankov; Roberto Turolla; Jacco Vink; Martin C. Weisskopf; Kinwah Wu; Fei Xie; Silvia Zane
• Keywords: cosmologia e scienza dello spazio; [SDU] Sciences of the Universe [physics]; QB460-466; [SDU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Radio galaxies; Polarimetry; X-ray quasars; Settore PHYS-05/A - Astrofisica; Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena; Astrophysics; 530; 520

Abstract We present polarization measurements in the 2–8 keV band from blazar 1ES 0229+200, the first extreme high synchrotron peaked source to be observed by the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE). Combining two exposures separated by about two weeks, we find the degree of polarization to be ΠX = 17.9% ± 2.8% at an electric-vector position angle ψ X = 25.°0 ± 4.°6 using a spectro-polarimetric fit from joint IXPE and XMM-Newton observations. There is no evidence for the polarization degree or angle varying significantly with energy or time on both short timescales (hours) or longer timescales (days). The contemporaneous polarization degree at optical wavelengths was >7× lower, making 1ES 0229+200 the most strongly chromatic blazar yet observed. This high X-ray polarization compared to the optical provides further support that X-ray emission in high-peaked blazars originates in shock-accelerated, energy-stratified electron populations, but is in tension with many recent modeling efforts attempting to reproduce the spectral energy distribution of 1ES 0229+200, which attribute the extremely high energy synchrotron and Compton peaks to Fermi acceleration in the vicinity of strongly turbulent magnetic fields.