Related papers: Spectral/timing evolution of black-hole binaries

Accreting black holes are unique tools to understand the physics under extreme gravity. While black hole X-ray binaries differ vastly in mass from AGN, their accretion and ejection flows are assumed to be essentially similar. Black hole…

Recently, it has been shown that soft-state black hole X-ray binaries and active galactic nuclei populate a plane in the space defined by the black hole mass, accretion rate and characteristic frequency. We show that this plane can be…

Compact binaries have long been a paradigm for accretion theory. Much of our present view of how accretion occurs comes directly from the comparison of theory with observations of these sources. Since theory differs little for other objects…

Radio and X-ray fluxes of accreting black holes in their hard state are known to correlate over several orders of magnitude. This correlation however shows a large scatter: black hole candidates with very similar X-ray luminosity, spectral…

A common assumption used in the study of accretion disks is that the magnetic energy density and the kinetic energy density should be in equipartition. This assumption relies on the faster growth rate of the magnetic field strength against…

At luminosities below a few percent of Eddington, accreting black holes switch to a hard spectral state which is very different from the soft blackbody-like spectral state that is found at higher luminosities. The hard state is…

We propose a model explaining the origin of transient/episodic jets in black-hole X-ray binaries, in which they are caused by transitions from a collimated, strongly magnetized, jet to a wide, un-collimated, outflow. The change occurs when…

Recent advances in the X-ray and soft gamma-ray observations of accreting black holes and microquasars, in particular, are reviewed. The radiative processes responsible for the emission are discussed briefly. The hybrid thermal/nonthermal…

The idea of a unified description of supermassive and stellar black holes has been supported by the extension of the empirical radio/X-ray correlation from X-ray binaries to active galactic nuclei through the inclusion of a mass term. This…

We present various instability mechanisms in the accreting black hole systems which might indicate at the connection between the accretion disk and jet. The jets observed in microquasars can have a persistent or blobby morphology.…

In studies of accreting black holes in binary systems, empirical relations have been proposed to quantify the coupling between accretion processes and ejection mechanisms. These processes are probed respectively by means of X-ray and…

I outline the theory of accretion onto black holes, and its application to observed phenomena such as X-ray binaries, active galactic nuclei, tidal disruption events, and gamma-ray bursts. The dynamics as well as radiative signatures of…

During outbursts, the observational properties of black hole X-ray binaries (BHXBs) vary on timescales of days to months. These relatively short timescales make these systems ideal laboratories to probe the coupling between accreting…

It has been found that a class of optically-thin two-temperature advection-dominated accretion solutions explains many observations of low-luminosity accreting black holes. Here it is shown that these models give a satisfactory description…

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…

(abridged) We review how the recent increase in X-ray and radio data from black hole and neutron star binaries can be merged together with theoretical advances to give a coherent picture of the physics of the accretion flow in strong…

Galactic black hole X-ray binaries (BHXBs) provide excellent laboratories to study accretion, as their relatively quick evolution allows us to monitor large changes in the in-flowing and/or out-flowing material over human timescales.…

Thanks to extensive observations with X-ray missions and facilities working in other wavelengths, as well as rapidly--advancing numerical simulations of accretion flows, our knowledge of astrophysical black holes has been remarkably…

We present the results of a systematic study of the formation and evolution of binaries containing black holes and normal-star companions with a wide range of masses. We first reexamine the standard formation scenario for close black-hole…

With their relatively fast variability time-scales, Galactic X-ray binaries provide an excellent laboratory to explore the physics of accretion and related phenomena, most notably outflows, over different regimes. After comparing the…