basic development for next generation hard X-ray polarimeter using capillary phenomena

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In the fields of high energy astrophysics, the polarimeter is required that can detect the polarization at accuracy in the hard X-ray region. However, there are not such polarimeters because the development is very difficult. So we are developing a hard X-ray Compton scattering type polarimeter capable of taking image of stellar objects. The scatterer is made by absorbing liquid scintillator to a capillary plate with capillary phenomena. As the capillary plate with liquid scintillator would be used for the scatterer, it is in principle possible to detect the scattering position with the accuracy of 0.01mm.At first, we established how to absorb the liquid scintillator into the capillary plate. So we succeeded in absorbing several types of liquid scintillator into the capillary plate with the capillary diameter of 0.006 mm by capillary phenomena. Moreover, we also established the technique to seal the liquid scintillator in the capillary plate. To test the operation, we injected thermal neutrons into the capillary plate with the liquid scintillator for neutrons mounted on a photomultiplier. Because the emitted lights from the liquid scintillator due to neutron injection is more than those due to hard X-ray injection, it is suitable for the check of the basic operation. We prepared for two kind of capillary plates and carried out three kinds of experiments. One capillary plate contains the liquid scintillator for neutron capture and the other one does not contain liquid santillator. We call the former one as capillary plate A and the latter one as capillary plate B, respectively. For experiment I, thermal neutrons were injected to the capillary plate A. For experiment II, thermal neutrons were injected to the capillary plate B. For experiment III, the background for the capillary plate A was measured without neutron injection. As the results, we confirmed that the significant signals were detected only for the experiment I.