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The gravitational field of a galaxy can act as a lens and deflect the light emitted by a more distant object such as a quasar. Strong gravitational lensing causes multiple images of the same quasar to appear in the sky. Since the light in…
The method of photon distribution function (PDF) is used to study fluctuations of light beams propagating through a turbulent atmosphere. Our analysis concerns the regime of saturated fluctuations. The focus is on the phenomena of beam…
The recent discovery that faint gamma-ray bursts are stretched in time relative to bright ones has been interpreted as support for cosmological distances: faint bursts have their durations redshifted relative to bright ones. It was pointed…
We investigate the dissipation of the bulk kinetic energy of a relativistic jet at different distances from the central power--house and analyse in detail how the dissipated energy is radiated away. We assume that the location of the…
Plasma lenses in the host galaxies of fast radio bursts (FRBs) can strongly modulate FRB amplitudes for a wide range of distances, including the $\sim $ Gpc distance of the repeater FRB121102. To produce caustics, the lens'…
We present photoionization models accounting for both photoelectric and resonant absorption. We demonstrate that resonance absorption lines are detectable even in moderate resolution X-ray spectra of type 1 AGN. The spectra transmitted by…
We perform correlated studies of individual GaN nanowires in scanning electron microscopy combined to low temperature cathodoluminescence, microphotoluminescence, and scanning transmission electron microscopy. We show that some nanowires…
Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) produce a dominant fraction (~80%) of the Soft X-ray background (SXB) at photon energies 0.5<E<2 keV. If dust pervaded throughout the intergalactic medium, its scattering opacity would have produced diffuse…
Current constraints on photon velocity variability are summarized and displayed in terms of an energy dependent vacuum refraction index. It is shown that the energy-momentum balance of high energy Compton scattering is very sensitive to the…
Only a small fraction of galactic nuclei in the nearby universe are luminous; most of them are currently dim. We investigate the feasibility of constraining the X-ray luminosity in the recent past (up to ~10^6 years ago) of the nucleus of a…
In previous work, we discussed the detection of reverberation delays in the NLS1 1H0707-495. The delays originate close to the black hole. Here, we show that RE J1034+396 shows very similar lag properties. At low frequencies (< 1 \times…
When an AGN is obscured, the warm reflecting gas nearby can be seen by a combination of bremsstrahlung, intrinsic line emission, and reflection of the nuclear continuum, both by electron scattering and by resonance line scattering.…
We study the time dependent spectra produced via the bulk Compton process by a cold, relativistic shell of plasma moving (and accelerating) along the jet of a blazar, scattering on external photons emitted by the accretion disc and…
We present new evidence of X-ray absorption variability on time scales from a few hours to a few days for several nearby bright AGNs. The observed N_H variations imply that the X-ray absorber is made of clouds eclipsing the X-ray source…
Quasars with flat radio spectra and one-sided, arc-second scale, ~100 mJy GHz radio jets are found to have similar scale X-ray jets in about 60% of such objects, even in short 5 to 10 ks Chandra observations. Jets emit in the GHz band via…
Relativistic plasma jets are observed in many accreting black holes. According to theory, coiled magnetic fields close to the black hole accelerate and collimate the plasma, leading to a jet being launched. Isolating emission from this…
The 2-10 keV continuum of AGN is generally well represented by a single power law. However, at smaller energies the continuum displays an excess with respect to the extrapolation of this power law, called the ''soft X-ray excess''. Until…
Relativistic jets from accreting supermassive black holes at cosmological distances can be powerful emitters of $\gamma$-rays. However, the precise mechanisms and locations responsible for the dissipation of energy within these jets,…
In X-ray binaries, several percent of the compact object luminosity is intercepted by the surface of the normal companion and re-radiated through Compton reflection and the K-fluorescence. This reflected emission follows the variability of…
Extended emission is a mystery in short gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs). By making time resolved spectral analyses of brightest nine events observed by ${\it Swift}$ XRT, we obviously classify the early X-ray emission of SGRBs into two types. One…