Polarimetric performance of a Bragg hard x-ray (>10 keV) concentrator

Hard x-ray (> 10 keV) concentrators are of key importance to overcome the sensitivity limitations of the current generation of (imaging and non imaging) direct viewing telescopes for hard x-ray astronomy. We studied the feasibility of a hard (> 10 keV) x-ray concentrator based on the Bragg diffraction technique. Apart from its unprecedented sensitivity in the band from 10 to approximately 100 keV, this concentrator has an intrinsic capability to measure the polarization of x rays in the low energy part of its operative range. In this report we discuss this property and the expected sensitivity of the instrument as a polarimeter.