Astrophysics Seminar

In recent years, high-energy (X/gamma-ray) polarimetry is gaining traction due to advancement in technologies that are allowing measurement of polarisation of high-energy photons. One of the important aspects of building a high-energy polarimeter is characterisation of the detector and instrument response. Typically, this is done by modelling the instrument (called mass-model) and carrying out end-to-end simulations using Monte Carlo techniques. The simulations involve simulation of astrophysical background components, on-axis spectro-polarimetric response for typical target sources and/or all-sky directional response. In this talk, by taking examples of a few X/gamma-ray missions such as the XPoSat/POLIX, the AstroSat/CZTI, the proposed mission Daksha and the Chinese-French SVOM/ECLAIRs, I will give an overview of how these simulations are performed and how they enable us to extract the useful scientific information from observations. In particular, I will talk about response and background simulations that are being carried out for XPoSat/POLIX, all-sky response simulations for AstroSat/CZTI for transient detection and polarisation measurement and Gamma-ray Burst (GRB) polarisation measurement sensitivity analysis performed for the proposed Daksha mission.