The Astrophysical Journal (Jan 2024)

X-Ray and Multiwavelength Polarization of Mrk 501 from 2022 to 2023

  • Chien-Ting J. Chen,
  • Ioannis Liodakis,
  • Riccardo Middei,
  • Dawoon E. Kim,
  • Laura Di Gesu,
  • Alessandro Di Marco,
  • Steven R. Ehlert,
  • Manel Errando,
  • Michela Negro,
  • Svetlana G. Jorstad,
  • Alan P. Marscher,
  • Kinwah Wu,
  • Iván Agudo,
  • Juri Poutanen,
  • Tsunefumi Mizuno,
  • Pouya M. Kouch,
  • Elina Lindfors,
  • George A. Borman,
  • Tatiana S. Grishina,
  • Evgenia N. Kopatskaya,
  • Elena G. Larionova,
  • Daria A. Morozova,
  • Sergey S. Savchenko,
  • Ivan S. Troitsky,
  • Yulia V. Troitskaya,
  • Andrey A. Vasilyev,
  • Alexey V. Zhovtan,
  • Francisco José Aceituno,
  • Giacomo Bonnoli,
  • Víctor Casanova,
  • Juan Escudero,
  • Beatriz Agís-González,
  • César Husillos,
  • Jorge Otero Santos,
  • Alfredo Sota,
  • Vilppu Piirola,
  • Ioannis Myserlis,
  • Emmanouil Angelakis,
  • Alexander Kraus,
  • Mark Gurwell,
  • Garrett Keating,
  • Ramprasad Rao,
  • Sincheol Kang,
  • Sang-Sung Lee,
  • Sang-Hyun Kim,
  • Whee Yeon Cheong,
  • Hyeon-Woo Jeong,
  • Chanwoo Song,
  • Andrei V. Berdyugin,
  • Masato Kagitani,
  • Vadim Kravtsov,
  • Anagha P. Nitindala,
  • Takeshi Sakanoi,
  • Ryo Imazawa,
  • Mahito Sasada,
  • Yasushi Fukazawa,
  • Koji S. Kawabata,
  • Makoto Uemura,
  • Tatsuya Nakaoka,
  • Hiroshi Akitaya,
  • Carolina Casadio,
  • Albrecht Sievers,
  • Lucio Angelo 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,
  • Stefano Ciprini,
  • Enrico Costa,
  • Alessandra De Rosa,
  • Ettore Del Monte,
  • Niccoló Di Lalla,
  • Immacolata Donnarumma,
  • Victor Doroshenko,
  • Michal Dovčiak,
  • Teruaki Enoto,
  • Yuri Evangelista,
  • Sergio Fabiani,
  • Riccardo Ferrazzoli,
  • Javier A. Garcia,
  • Shuichi Gunji,
  • Kiyoshi Hayashida,
  • Jeremy Heyl,
  • Wataru Iwakiri,
  • Philip Kaaret,
  • Vladimir Karas,
  • Fabian Kislat,
  • Takao Kitaguchi,
  • Jeffery J. Kolodziejczak,
  • Henric Krawczynski,
  • Fabio La Monaca,
  • Luca Latronico,
  • Simone Maldera,
  • Alberto Manfreda,
  • Frédéric Marin,
  • Andrea Marinucci,
  • Herman L. Marshall,
  • Francesco Massaro,
  • Giorgio Matt,
  • Ikuyuki Mitsuishi,
  • Fabio Muleri,
  • C.-Y. Ng,
  • Stephen L. O’Dell,
  • Nicola Omodei,
  • Chiara Oppedisano,
  • Alessandro Papitto,
  • George G. Pavlov,
  • Abel Lawrence Peirson,
  • Matteo Perri,
  • Melissa Pesce-Rollins,
  • Pierre-Olivier Petrucci,
  • Maura Pilia,
  • Andrea Possenti,
  • 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,
  • Fabrizio Tavecchio,
  • Roberto Taverna,
  • Yuzuru Tawara,
  • Allyn F. Tennant,
  • Nicholas E. Thomas,
  • Francesco Tombesi,
  • Alessio Trois,
  • Sergey S. Tsygankov,
  • Roberto Turolla,
  • Jacco Vink,
  • Martin C. Weisskopf,
  • Fei Xie,
  • Silvia Zane

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad63a1
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 974, no. 1
p. 50

Abstract

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We present multiwavelength polarization measurements of the luminous blazar Mrk 501 over a 14 month period. The 2–8 keV X-ray polarization was measured with the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) with six 100 ks observations spanning from 2022 March to 2023 April. Each IXPE observation was accompanied by simultaneous X-ray data from NuSTAR, Swift/XRT, and/or XMM-Newton. Complementary optical–infrared polarization measurements were also available in the B , V , R , I , and J bands, as were radio polarization measurements from 4.85 GHz to 225.5 GHz. Among the first five IXPE observations, we did not find significant variability in the X-ray polarization degree and angle with IXPE. However, the most recent sixth observation found an elevated polarization degree at >3 σ above the average of the other five observations. The optical and radio measurements show no apparent correlations with the X-ray polarization properties. Throughout the six IXPE observations, the X-ray polarization degree remained higher than, or similar to, the R -band optical polarization degree, which remained higher than the radio value. This is consistent with the energy-stratified shock scenario proposed to explain the first two IXPE observations, in which the polarized X-ray, optical, and radio emission arises from different regions.

Keywords