A mission overview

XIPE is a new mission concept selected by ESA in June 2015 to undergo a 2 years-long assessment phase in the context of the Cosmic Vision M4 competition. The mission is devoted to the observation of celestial sources in X-rays:

• X-ray polarimetry is photon hungry, but scientifically needed
• A dedicated mission is required

XIPE uniqueness:

• Time-, spectrally-, spatially-resolved X-ray polarimetry as a breakthrough in high energy astrophysics and fundamental physics
• It will explore this observational window after 40 years from the last positive measurement, with a dramatic improvement in sensitivity: from one to hundred sources

In the violent X-ray sky, polarimetry is expected to have a much greater impact than in most other wavelengths. A large number of scientific topics and observable sources will thus be accessible to XIPE:

XIPE - artist's impression (credits INAF-IAPS)

• Astrophysics
  • Acceleration phenomena
    • Pulsar wind nebulae
    • SNRs
    • Jets
  • Emission in strong magnetic fields
    • Magnetic cataclysmic variables
    • Accreting millisecond pulsars
    • Accreting X-ray pulsars
    • Magnetar
  • Scattering in aspherical situations
    • X-ray binaries
    • Radio-quiet AGN
    • X-ray reflection nebulae
• Fundamental Physics
  • Matter in Extreme Magnetic Fields: QED effects
  • Matter in Extreme Gravitational Fields: GR effects
    • Galactic black hole system & AGNs
  • Quantum Gravity
  • Search for axion-like particles