The Imaging Magnetograph eXperiment (IMaX) for the Sunrise balloon-borne solar observatory
V.Martinez Pillet, J.C.del Toro Iniesta, A. Alvarez-Herrero,, V.Domingo, J. A.Bonet, L.Gonzalez Fernandez, A. Lopez Jimenez, C. Pastor,, J.L. Gasent Blesa, P. Mellado, J.Piqueras, B. Aparicio, M. Balaguer, E., Ballesteros, T.Belenguer, L.R. Bellot Rubio, T. Berkefeld

TL;DR
IMaX is a high-resolution spectropolarimeter flown on the Sunrise balloon observatory, capable of detailed solar magnetic field measurements with high sensitivity and spatial resolution, providing valuable data for solar physics research.
Contribution
This paper presents the design, calibration, and performance of IMaX, a novel balloon-borne spectropolarimeter with advanced polarization sensitivity and spectral resolution for solar observations.
Findings
Achieved polarization sensitivities of 0.1%
Reconstructed images with 0.15-0.18 arcsec resolution
LOS velocity measurements with 5-40 m/s accuracy
Abstract
The Imaging Magnetograph eXperiment (IMaX) is a spectropolarimeter built by four institutions in Spain that flew on board the Sunrise balloon-borne telesocope in June 2009 for almost six days over the Arctic Circle. As a polarimeter IMaX uses fast polarization modulation (based on the use of two liquid crystal retarders), real-time image accumulation, and dual beam polarimetry to reach polarization sensitivities of 0.1%. As a spectrograph, the instrument uses a LiNbO3 etalon in double pass and a narrow band pre-filter to achieve a spectral resolution of 85 mAA. IMaX uses the high Zeeman sensitive line of Fe I at 5250.2 AA and observes all four Stokes parameters at various points inside the spectral line. This allows vector magnetograms, Dopplergrams, and intensity frames to be produced that, after reconstruction, reach spatial resolutions in the 0.15-0.18 arcsec range over a 50x50…
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