Polarized x-rays constrain the disk-jet geometry in the black hole x-ray binary Cygnus X-1
Creators: name: Krawczynski, Henric
name: Muleri, Fabio
name: Dovčiak, Michal
name: Veledina, Alexandra
name: Cavero, Nicole Rodriguez
name: Svoboda, Jiri
name: Ingram, Adam
name: Matt, Giorgio
name: Garcia, Javier A.
name: Loktev, Vladislav
name: Negro, Michela
name: Poutanen, Juri
name: Kitaguchi, Takao
name: Podgorný, Jakub
name: Rankin, John
name: Zhang, Wenda
name: Berdyugin, Andrei
name: Berdyugina, Svetlana V.
name: Bianchi, Stefano
name: Blinov, Dmitry
name: Capitanio, Fiamma
name: Di Lalla, Niccolò
name: Draghis, Paul
name: Fabiani, Sergio
name: Kagitani, Masato
name: Kravtsov, Vadim
name: Kiehlmann, Sebastian
name: Latronico, Luca
name: Lutovinov, Alexander A.
name: Mandarakas, Nikos
name: Marin, Frédéric
name: Marinucci, Andrea
name: Miller, Jon
name: Mizuno, Tsunefumi
name: Molkov, Sergey V.
name: Omodei, Nicola
name: Petrucci, Pierre-Olivier
name: Ratheesh, Ajay
name: Sakanoi, Takeshi
name: Semena, Andrei N.
name: Skalidis, Raphael
name: Soffitta, Paolo
name: Tennant, Allyn F.
name: Thalhammer, Phillipp
name: Tombesi, Francesco
name: Weisskopf, Martin C.
name: Wilms, Joern
name: Zhang, Sixuan
name: Agudo, Iván
name: Antonelli, Lucio A.
name: Bachetti, Matteo
name: Baldini, Luca
name: Baumgartner, Wayne H.
name: Bellazzini, Ronaldo
name: Bongiorno, Stephen D.
name: Bonino, Raffaella
name: Brez, Alessandro
name: Bucciantini, Niccolò
name: Castellano, Simone
name: Cavazzuti, Elisabetta
name: Ciprini, Stefano
name: Costa, Enrico
name: De Rosa, Alessandra
name: Del Monte, Ettore
name: Di Gesu, Laura
name: Di Marco, Alessandro
name: Donnarumma, Immacolata
name: Doroshenko, Victor
name: Ehlert, Steven R.
name: Enoto, Teruaki
name: Evangelista, Yuri
name: Ferrazzoli, Riccardo
name: Gunji, Shuichi
name: Hayashida, Kiyoshi
name: Heyl, Jeremy
name: Iwakiri, Wataru
name: Jorstad, Svetlana G.
name: Karas, Vladimir
name: Kolodziejczak, Jeffery J.
name: La Monaca, Fabio
name: Liodakis, Ioannis
name: Maldera, Simone
name: Manfreda, Alberto
name: Marscher, Alan P.
name: Marshall, Herman L.
name: Mitsuishi, Ikuyuki
name: Ng, C. -Y.
name: O'Dell, Stephen L.
name: Oppedisano, Chiara
name: Papitto, Alessandro
name: Pavlov, George G.
name: Peirson, Abel L.
name: Perri, Matteo
name: Pesce-Rollins, Melissa
name: Pilia, Maura
name: Possenti, Andrea
name: Puccetti, Simonetta
name: Ramsey, Brian D.
name: Romani, Roger W.
name: Sgrò, Carmelo
name: Slane, Patrick
name: Spandre, Gloria
name: Tamagawa, Toru
name: Tavecchio, Fabrizio
name: Taverna, Roberto
name: Tawara, Yuzuru
name: Thomas, Nicolas E.
name: Trois, Alessio
name: Tsygankov, Sergey
name: Turolla, Roberto
name: Vink, Jacco
name: Wu, Kinwah
name: Xie, Fei
name: Zane, Silvia
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: A black hole x-ray binary (XRB) system forms when gas is stripped from a normal star and accretes onto a black hole, which heats the gas sufficiently to emit x-rays. We report a polarimetric observation of the XRB Cygnus X-1 using the Imaging x-ray Polarimetry Explorer. The electric field position angle aligns with the outflowing jet, indicating that the jet is launched from the inner x-ray emitting region. The polarization degree is (4.01+-0.20)% at 2 to 8 kiloelectronvolts, implying that the accretion disk is viewed closer to edge-on than the binary orbit. The observations reveal that hot x-ray emitting plasma is spatially extended in a plane perpendicular to the jet axis, not parallel to the jet.
description: 51 pages, 15 figures, 5 tables