Highlights from IXPE observatory
How to learn about geometry of astrophysical sources if they cannot be resolved? One of the options is to study them in polarized light. Scattering in an asymmetric medium produces polarized radiation with the polarization degree reflecting the asymmetry and the polarization angle - the orientation of the medium. Polarization of synchrotron radiation allows us to measure the orientation of the magnetic field and its homogeneity.
Compact objects such as neutron stars and black holes emit most of their radiation in the X-ray band and thus it is natural to look for polarization in that band. The launch of the Imaging X-ray Polarimeter Explorer (IXPE) in December 2021 opened a new window to the Universe allowing us to study compact sources with polarized X-rays. In this talk I will give an overview of the IXPE observatory and present recent results concentrating mostly on X-ray binaries: accreting black holes, X-ray pulsars and weakly magnetized neutron stars.