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A new NASA Pioneer: the Globe Orbiting Soft X-ray Polarimeter (GOSoX)

Herman L Marshall, Sarah N T Heine, Alan Garner, Sean Gunderson, Hans M Guenther, Ralf K Heilmann, Stephen Bongiorno, Eric M Gullikson, Andrea Santangelo, Chris Tenzer, Ruth Kelly, Silvia Zane, Roberto Taverna, Roberto Turolla, Michela Negro, Rozenn Boissay-Malaquin, Luigi Gallo, Honghui Liu, Swati Ravi

astro-ph.IMarXiv:2608.02891

Abstract

The Globe Orbiting Soft X-ray Polarimeter (GOSoX) is a spectropolarimeter for the soft X-ray band. GOSoX is based on the Rocket Experiment Demonstration of a Soft X-ray Polarimeter (REDSoX), a NASA-funded sounding rocket payload. Like REDSoX, GOSoX consists of Wolter I X-ray optics from NASA/MSFC, critical-angle transmission (CAT) gratings made at MIT, and multilayer (ML) coated mirrors from LBNL that polarize the X-rays. Colleagues at U. Tübingen will adapt commercially available sCMOS sensors for the focal plane. The grating dispersion is matched to the lateral grading of ML mirrors set at 45°. GOSoX can measure polarization across the entire 0.2-0.4 keV band with a spectral resolution E/dE 100. Minimum detectable polarizations (MDPs) of 3-10\% are expected for over a dozen targets in a one-year mission. The mission was selected by NASA for launch in 2030.

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