Related papers: Optical Microvariability in Quasars: Spectral Vari…
The morphologies of detected jets in X-ray binaries are almost as diverse as their number. This is due to different jet properties and ambient media that these jets encounter. It is important to understand the physics of these objects and…
We present low resolution (R approximately 250) spectroscopy in the near-IR (0.8 to 2.5um) of the EXor variables. These are the initial results (obtained during the period 2007-2008) from a long term photometric and spectroscopic program…
The detection of rapid variability on a time-scale of hours in radio-quiet quasars (RQQSOs) could be a powerful discriminator between starburst, accretion disc and relativistic jet models of these sources. This paper contains an account of…
Since the radiation from different portions in the central region of a quasar can be successively amplified during a microlensing event, microlensing light curves provide us with fruitful information regarding the emissivity distribution of…
We report the main results of our six year long intensive optical monitoring on blazars ON 231 (W Com), BL Lac, and 3C 273. Intensive optical monitoring is an indispensable tool to obtain well sampled light curves and thus to understand the…
The physical origin of the X-ray emission in powerful quasar jets has been a long-standing mystery. Though these jets start out on the sub-pc scale as highly relativistic flows, we do not have any direct measurement of their speeds on the…
Optical/near-infrared (optical/NIR; OIR) light from low-mass neutron star X-ray binaries (NSXBs) in outburst is traditionally thought to be thermal emission from the accretion disc. Here we present a comprehensive collection of…
This paper addresses the question of the observations to be performed with the Optical Monitor (OM) of the X-ray Multi-Mirror Satellite (XMM) under several aspects. First, we discuss XMM-OM's photometric system and its colour…
We present optical light curves of 19 radio quiet (RQ) broad absorption line (BAL) QSOs and study their rapid variability characteristics. Systematic CCD observations, aided by a careful data analysis procedure, have allowed us to clearly…
The ``central engine'' of AGN is thought to be powered by accretion on a central nucleus believed to be a super-massive black hole. The localization and exact mechanism of the energy release in AGN are still not well understood. We present…
The microquasar phenomenon is associated with the production of jets by X-ray binaries and, as such, may be associated with the majority of such systems. In this chapter we briefly outline the associations, definite, probable, possible, and…
Radio variability in quasars has been seen on timescales ranging from days to years due to both intrinsic and propagation induced effects. Although separating the two is not always straight-forward, observations of singular `events' in…
The optical-ultraviolet continuum from active galactic nuclei (AGN) seem to originate from optically thick and/or thin disks, and occasionally from associated circumnuclear starburst regions. These different possible origins can, in…
We analyze 1598 serendipitous Chandra X-ray observations of 462 radio-quiet quasars to constrain the frequency of extreme amplitude X-ray variability that is intrinsic to the quasar corona and innermost accretion flow. The quasars in this…
The UV/optical variation, likely driven by accretion disc turbulence, is a defining characteristic of type 1 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and quasars. In this work we investigate an interesting consequence of such turbulence using quasars…
Decoherence due to scattering from background gas particles is observed for the first time in a Mach-Zehnder atom interferometer, and compared with decoherence due to scattering photons. A single theory is shown to describe decoherence due…
Given the anisotropic emission from quasar accretion discs, their viewing angle affects estimates of the quasar luminosity, black-hole mass and Eddington ratio. Discs appear overluminous when viewed pole-on and underluminous when viewed at…
The variability of active galactic nuclei (AGN) has long held the promise of shedding light on their detailed structure, and possibly other astrophysical phenonema. Different emission mechanisms lead to different patterns of variability in…
Microquasars are sources of very high-energy gamma-rays and, very probably, high-energy gamma-ray emitters. We propose a model for a jet that can allow to give accurate observational predictions for jet emission at different energies and…
The Optical Monitoring Camera (OMC) onboard INTEGRAL provides photometry in the Johnson V-band. With an aperture of 50 mm and a field of view of 5deg x 5deg, OMC is able to detect optical sources brighter than V~18, from a previously…