IXPE X-ray polarization observational campaign of Swift J1727.8-1613

ATel #16237; Michal Dovciak, Ajay Ratheesh, Allyn Tennant, and Giorgio Matt on behalf of the IXPE team
on 12 Sep 2023; 06:17 UT
Credential Certification: James F Steiner (jsteiner@cfa.harvard.edu)

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The newly discovered object Swift J1727.8-1613 (ATEL #16205, #16206) that was initially reported as GRB 230824A (GCN #34536, #34537) with X-ray and optical properties similar to those of a low-mass X-ray binary hosting a black hole candidate (ATEL #16207, #16208) has already been observed in many wavelengths (ATEL #16209, #16210, #16211, #16215, #16216, #16217, #16219, #16225, #16228, #16231, #16232, #16235). The polarization of this object in submillimeter wavelengths has also been measured by SMA (ATEL #16230). The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) team is currently performing an observational campaign on this new transient with X-ray timing, spectral, and polarimetric instruments (NICER, NuSTAR, IXPE). While the first observation taken on September 7 is being processed, another one, 40 ks long, is planned for September 16 between 2023-09-16T16:50 and 2023-09-17T03:52 in UTC. During the source IXPE visibility window, two more observations are planned to be performed, on September 28 and October 4. The exact time slots for these observations will still be decided and announced in IXPE weekly plan at https://wwwastro.msfc.nasa.gov/for_scientists/weekly.html. Accompanying multiwavelength observations promise to give new insights into the nature of this newly discovered transient.