Related papers: Powerful flares from recoiling black holes in quas…
We revisit the scenario of the gravitational radiation recoil acquired by the final remnant of a black-hole-binary merger by studying a set of configurations that have components of the spin both aligned with the orbital angular momentum…
Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, exhibits frequent short-duration flares with luminosity greater than 1e34 erg/s across multiple wavelengths. The origin of the flares is still unknown. We revisited the…
We present an observational constraint for the typical active galactic nucleus (AGN) phase lifetime. The argument is based on the time lag between an AGN central engine switching on and becoming visible in X-rays, and the time the AGN then…
Anisotropic emission of gravitational waves during the merger or formation of black holes can lead to the ejection of these black holes from their host galaxies. A recoiled black hole which moves on an almost radial bound orbit outside the…
The very first stars in the Universe can be very massive, up to $10^6M_\odot$. They would leave behind massive black holes that could act as seeds for growing super massive black holes of active galactic nuclei. Given the anticipated fast…
We argue that the `changing look' AGN recently reported by LaMassa et al. could be a luminous flare produced by the tidal disruption of a super-solar mass star passing just a few gravitational radii outside the event horizon of a $\sim 10^8…
We use hydrodynamical simulations to study the color transformations induced by star formation and active galactic nuclei (AGN) during major mergers of spiral galaxies. Our modeling accounts for radiative cooling, star formation, and…
Black holes are a common feature of the Universe. They are observed as stellar mass black holes spread throughout galaxies and as supermassive objects in their centres. Observations of stars orbiting close to the centre of our Galaxy…
Observations of high-redshift quasars frequently promote suggestions of large black hole masses, whose presence so early in cosmic time is not easily explicable. I consider the parallel with ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) -- now known…
We present a new type of observation relating the gravitational wave emission of supermassive black hole mergers to their electromagnetic counterparts. This dual emission involves variability of a relativistic jet arising from the…
Large-amplitude Sgr A* near-infrared flares result from energy injection into electrons near the black hole event horizon. Astrometry data show continuous rotation of the emission region during bright flares, and corresponding rotation of…
The UV continuum spectrum of quasars and AGN is assumed to originate from an accreting disk surrounding a massive rotating black hole. We discuss the structure and emission spectra of a disk which drives a powerful jet. Due to the large…
Accreting black holes can release enormous amounts of energy to their surroundings, in various forms. Such feedback may profoundly influence a black hole's environment. After briefly reviewing the possible types of feedback, I focus on the…
The discovery of long-lasting (~100 s) X-ray flares following short gamma-ray bursts initially called into question whether they were truly classical short-hard bursts. Opinion over the last few years has coalesced around the view that the…
Recent infrared (IR) observations of the center of our Galaxy indicate that the supermassive black hole source Sgr A* is strongly variable in the IR. The timescale for the variability, $\sim 30$ min, is comparable to that of the X-ray…
Spectral features can arise by reflection of coronal X-rays on a black hole accretion disc. The resulting profile bears various imprints of strong gravitational field acting on the light emitting gas. The observed shape of the reflection…
We study reflected X-ray emission that returns to the accretion disc in the strong gravitational fields around black holes using General Relativistic ray tracing and radiative transfer calculations. Reflected X-rays that are produced when…
We demonstrate that the luminosity function of the recently detected population of star-forming galaxies and the QSO luminosity function at z=3 can be matched with the mass function of dark matter haloes predicted by hierarchical…
Kinematical and luminosity relations for black-hole jet sources are reviewed. If the TeV flares observed from PKS 2155-304 in 2006 July are assumed to originate from a black hole with mass $\approx 10^8 M_8 M_\odot$, then the $\sim 5$…
Relativistic jets are one of the most powerful manifestations of the release of energy produced around supermassive black holes at the centre of active galactic nuclei (AGN). Their emission is observed across the entire electromagnetic…