HESS J0632+057 is a variable, point-like source of Very High Energy (> 100 GeV) gamma-rays located in the Galactic plane. It is positionally coincident with a Be star, it is a variable radio and X-ray source, has a hard X-ray spectrum, and has low radio flux. These properties suggest that the object may be a member of the rare class of TeV/X-ray binary systems. The definitive confirmation of this would be the detection of a periodic orbital modulation of the flux at any wavelength. We have obtained Swift X-ray telescope observations of the source from MJD 54857 to 55647 () to test the hypothesis that HESS J0632+057 is an X-ray/TeV binary. We show that these data exhibit flux modulation with a period of 321 ± 5 days and we evaluate the significance of this period by calculating the null hypothesis probability, allowing for stochastic flaring. This periodicity establishes the binary nature of HESS J0632+057.

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Most of the light from blazars, active galactic nuclei with jets of magnetized plasma that point nearly along the line of sight, is produced by high-energy particles, up to around 1 TeV. Although the jets are known to be ultimately powered by a supermassive black hole, how the particles are accelerated to such high energies has been an unanswered question. The process must be related to the magnetic field, which can be probed by observations of the polarization of light from the jets. Measurements of the radio to optical polarization—the only range available until now—probe extended regions of the jet containing particles that left the acceleration site days to years earlier1–3, and hence do not directly explore the acceleration mechanism, as could X-ray measurements. Here we report the detection of X-ray polarization from the blazar Markarian 501 (Mrk 501). We measure an X-ray linear polarization degree ΠX of around 10%, which is a factor of around 2 higher than the value at optical wavelengths, with a polarization angle parallel to the radio jet. This points to a shock front as the source of particle acceleration and also implies that the plasma becomes increasingly turbulent with distance from the shock.

A black hole x-ray binary (XRB) system forms when gas is stripped from a normal star and accretes onto a black hole, which heats the gas sufficiently to emit x-rays. We report a polarimetric observation of the XRB Cygnus X-1 using the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer. The electric field position angle aligns with the outflowing jet, indicating that the jet is launched from the inner x-ray emitting region. The polarization degree is 4.01 ± 0.20% at 2 to 8 kiloelectronvolts, implying that the accretion disk is viewed closer to edge-on than the binary orbit. The observations reveal that hot x-ray emitting plasma is spatially extended in a plane perpendicular to the jet axis, not parallel to the jet.

ABSTRACT. We have designed and tested an in-plane echelle spectrograph configured to investigate precision radial velocities from ground-based near-infrared observations. The spectrograph operates across the spectral range of 0.9-1.7 μm at a spectral resolution of R ¼ 50; 000, and uses a liquid nitrogen-cooled HAWAII 1 K detector. Repeated measurements of the Earth's rotation via integrated sunlight with two different instrument arrangements in the near-infrared Y band have produced radial velocities with ∼10 m s À1 rms over a period of several hours. The most recent instrument configuration has achieved an unbinned rms of 7 m s À1 and suggests that infrared radial velocity precisions may be able to approach those achieved at optical wavelengths.