A high-sensitivity polarimeter using a ferro-electric liquid crystal modulator

J. Bailey; Lucyna Kedziora-Chudczer; Daniel V. Cotton; Kimberly Bott; J.H. Hough; P.W. Lucas

doi:10.1093/mnras/stv519

A high-sensitivity polarimeter using a ferro-electric liquid crystal modulator

J. Bailey, Lucyna Kedziora-Chudczer, Daniel V. Cotton, Kimberly Bott, J.H. Hough, P.W. Lucas

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Abstract

We describe the HIgh Precision Polarimetric Instrument (HIPPI), a polarimeter built at UNSW (The University of New South Wales) Australia and used on the Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT). HIPPI is an aperture polarimeter using a ferro-electric liquid crystal modulator. HIPPI measures the linear polarization of starlight with a sensitivity in fractional polarization of ∼4 × 10⁻⁶ on low-polarization objects and a precision of better than 0.01 per cent on highly polarized stars. The detectors have a high dynamic range allowing observations of the brightest stars in the sky as well as much fainter objects. The telescope polarization of the AAT is found to be 48 ± 5 × 10⁻⁶ in the g′ band

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	3064-3073
Number of pages	10
Journal	Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS)
Volume	449
Issue number	3
Early online date	9 Apr 2015
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv519
Publication status	Published - 21 May 2015

Keywords

polarization, instrumentation: polarimeters, techniques: polarimetric

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AU - Bott, Kimberly

AU - Hough, J.H.

AU - Lucas, P.W.

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DO - 10.1093/mnras/stv519

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JF - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS)

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A high-sensitivity polarimeter using a ferro-electric liquid crystal modulator

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Keywords

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