Discovery of Polarized X-Ray Emission from the Accreting Millisecond Pulsar SRGA J144459.2-604207

We report on the discovery of polarized X-ray emission from an accreting millisecond pulsar. During a 10-day-long coverage of the February 2024 outburst of SRGA J144459. 2-604207, the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) detected an average polarization degree of the 2-8 keV emission of 2. 3% +/- 0. 4% at an angle of 59 +/- 6 (East of North; uncertainties quoted at the 1 confidence level). The polarized signal shows a significant energy dependence with a degree of 4. 0% +/- 0. 5% between 3 and 6 keV and < 2% (90% c. l. ) in the 2-3 keV range. We used NICER, XMM-Newton, and NuSTAR observations to obtain an accurate pulse timing solution and perform a phase-resolved polarimetric analysis of IXPE data. We did not detect any significant variability of the Stokes parameters Q and U with the spin and the orbital phases. We used the relativistic rotating vector model to show that a moderately fan-beam emission from two point-like spots at a small magnetic obliquity (10) is compatible with the observed pulse profile and polarization properties. IXPE also detected 52 type-I X-ray bursts, with a recurrence time tₑ₄₂ increasing from 2 to 8 h as a function of the observed count rate C as as tₑ₄₂ C^-0. 8 We stacked the emission observed during all the bursts and obtained an upper limit on the polarization degree of 8. 5% (90% c. l. ).