Related papers: X-ray variability with WFXT: AGNs, transients and …
The XLF of AGN offers a robust tool to study the evolution and the growth of SMBHs over cosmic time. Owing to the limited area probed by X-ray surveys, optical surveys are routinely used to probe the accretion in the high redshift Universe…
Fast X-ray Transients (FXTs) are short-lived extra-galactic X-ray sources. Recent progress through multi-wavelength follow-up of Einstein Probe discovered FXTs has shown that several are related to collapsars, which can also produce…
In the last 15 years, 6 dedicated observation programs were carried out to monitor ~20 deg around the galactic center for transient activity above a few keV. Transient activity from low-mass X-ray binaries shows a strong preference for this…
Optical variability in galaxies at high redshift is a tracer of evolution in AGN activity, and should provide a useful constraint on models of galaxy evolution, AGN structure, and cosmology. We studied optical variability in multiple deep…
We present the Near-Ultraviolet eXplorer (NUX), which will consist out of 4 small (36 cm diameter) ground-based telescopes that are optimized for the shortest wavelengths that are detectable from Earth (i.e., the near-UV [NUV] wavelength…
Some progress in understanding AGN variability is reviewed. Reprocessing of X-ray radiation to produce significant amounts of longer-wavelength continua seems to be ruled out. In some objects where there has been correlated X-ray and…
Supergiant high mass X-ray binaries (SGXBs) are believed to be rare objects, as stars in the supergiant phase have a very short lifetime and to date only about a dozen of them have been discovered. They are known to be persistent and bright…
Among the different types of sources shining in the high energy sky, gamma-ray binaries are rapidly becoming the subject of major interest. In fact, in the last few years a number of High Mass X-ray Binaries (HMXBs) have been firmly…
AGN are known to account for a major portion, if not all, of the cosmic X-ray background radiation. The dominant sharp spectral feature in their spectra is the 6.4 keV fluorescent line of iron, which may contribute to as much as ~ 5-10 % of…
In the past fifteen years a new generation of X-ray satellites led to the discovery of a subclass of high-mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs) with supergiant companions and a peculiar transient behaviour: supergiant fast X-ray transients (SFXTs).…
Swift has allowed the possibility to give Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients (SFXTs), the new class of High Mass X-ray Binaries discovered by INTEGRAL, non serendipitous attention throughout all phases of their life. We present our results…
We present an overview of our Supergiant Fast X-ray Transients (SFXT) project, that started in 2007, by highlighting the unique observational contribution Swift is giving to this exciting new field. By means of outburst detection with…
Variability has proven to be a powerful tool to detect active galactic nuclei (AGN) in multi-epoch surveys. The new-generation facilities expected to become operational in the next few years will mark a new era in time-domain astronomy and…
A significant fraction of high-mass X-ray binaries are supergiant fast X-ray transients (SFXTs). The prime model for the physics governing their X-ray behaviour suggests that the winds of donor OB supergiants are magnetized. To investigate…
Optical and infrared observations have thus far detected more celestial cataclysms than have been seen in gravity waves (GW). This argues that we should search for gravity wave signatures that correspond to flux variability seen at optical…
The usage of cumulative luminosity distributions, constructed thanks to the long-term observations available through wide field hard X-ray imagers, has been recently exploited to study the averaged high energy emission (>17 keV) from…
Astrophysical transients have been observed for millennia and have shaped our most basic assumptions about the Universe. In the last century, systematic searches have grown from detecting handfuls of transients per year to over 7000 in 2018…
Gravitationally lensed Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) offer critical advantages over other lensed sources. They can be detected via continuously operating detectors covering most of the sky. They offer extremely high time resolution to determine…
Critical progress in our understanding of high energy emission from AGN has been determined in the last 10 years by X-ray monitoring campaigns with many space missions, notably ROSAT, ASCA, RXTE, BeppoSAX, and XMM, often in conjunction with…
The Ultraviolet Transient Astronomy Satellite (ULTRASAT) is scheduled to be launched to geostationary orbit in 2026. It will carry a telescope with an unprecedentedly large field of view (204 deg$^2$) and NUV (230-290nm) sensitivity (22.5…