2011ApJ...732L..21G

We report results of a theoretical investigation of polarization of the X-ray emissions induced in charge-exchange collisions of fully stripped solar wind (SW) ions C^6 +^ and O^8 +^ with the heliospheric hydrogen atoms. The polarization of X-ray emissions has been computed for line-of-sight observations within the ecliptic plane as a function of SW ion velocities, including a range of velocities corresponding to the slow and fast SW, and coronal mass ejections. To determine the variability of polarization of heliospheric X-ray emissions, the polarization has been computed for solar minimum conditions with self-consistent parameters of the SW plasma and heliospheric gas and compared with the polarization calculated for an averaged solar activity. We predict the polarization of charge-exchange X-rays to be between 3% and 8%, depending on the line-of-sight geometry, SW ion velocity, and the selected emission lines.