Related papers: The Hot and Energetic Universe: Luminous extragala…
Originally developed to image the shadow region of the central black hole in Sagittarius A* and in the nearby galaxy M87, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) provides deep, very high angular resolution data on other AGN sources too. The…
We discuss how future X-ray instruments which are under development can contribute to our understanding of the non-thermal Universe. Much progress has been made in the field of X-ray Astronomy recently, thanks to the operation of modern…
The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will open a discovery frontier for faint and fast transients with its ability to detect variable flux components down to $\sim$24.5 mag in a $\sim$30 second exposure. Spectroscopic follow-up of…
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…
I provide an incomplete inventory of the astronomical variability that will be found by next-generation time-domain astronomical surveys. These phenomena span the distance range from near-Earth satellites to the farthest Gamma Ray Bursts.…
During the tidal disruption of a star by a massive black hole (BH) of mass MBH <~ 10^7 Msun, stellar debris falls back to the BH at a rate well above the Eddington rate. A fraction of this gas is subsequently blown away from the BH,…
We present modifications to the Athena++ framework to enable use of general equations of state (EOS). Part of our motivation for doing so is to model transient astrophysics phenomena, as these types of events are often not well approximated…
We investigate the potential of the upcoming LOBSTER space observatory (due circa 2009) to detect soft X-ray flashes from shock breakout in supernovae, primarily from Type II events. LOBSTER should discover many SN breakout flashes,…
Shock breakout is the brightest radiative phenomenon in a supernova (SN) but is difficult to be observed owing to the short duration and X-ray/ultraviolet (UV)-peaked spectra. After the first observation from the rising phase reported in…
ATHENA is a large-class ESA mission selected for launch in 2031. It is designed to address the science theme "The Hot and Energetic Universe", performing X-ray observations (0.2-12 keV) at the L2 Sun-Earth Lagrangian point. The X-IFU is one…
Gaia is a European Space Agency (ESA) astrometry space mission, and a successor to the ESA Hipparcos mission. Gaia's main goal is to collect high-precision astrometric data (i.e. positions, parallaxes, and proper motions) for the brightest…
Active Galactic Nuclei (hereafter AGN) produce powerful outflows which offer excellent conditions for efficient particle acceleration in internal and external shocks, turbulence, and magnetic reconnection events. The jets as well as…
We present a review of the topics of X-ray stellar tidal disruption events (TDEs) and changing-look active galactic nuclei (AGN). Stars approaching a supermassive black hole (SMBH) can be tidally disrupted and accreted. TDEs were first…
SKA's large field of view and high sensitivity at low frequencies will provide almost a complete coverage of the very early rising phase of extragalactic and Galactic transients which undergo a flare or outburst due to an abrupt accretion…
Over the next decade, we can expect time domain astronomy to flourish at optical and radio wavelengths. In parallel with these efforts, a dedicated transient "machine" operating at higher energies (X-ray band through soft gamma-rays) is…
The luminosity function of active galactic nuclei has been measured down to luminosities ~10^{42} erg/s in the soft and hard X-rays. Some fraction of this activity is associated with the accretion of the material liberated by the tidal…
The ANITA experiment, which is designed to detect ultra-high energy neutrinos, has reported the observation of two anomalous events, directed at angles of $27^{\circ}$ and $35^{\circ}$ with respect to the horizontal. At these angles, the…
Relativistic transients such as gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), jetted tidal disruption events, luminous fast blue optical transients, and fast X-ray transients, represent the brightest explosions in the Universe and serve dual roles as…
The tidal disruption of a star by a supermassive black hole provides us with a rare glimpse of these otherwise dormant beasts. It has long been predicted that the disruption will be accompanied by a thermal `flare', powered by the accretion…
ATHENA, with a launch foreseen in 2028 towards the L2 orbit, addresses the science theme "The Hot and Energetic Universe", coupling a high-performance X-ray Telescope with two complementary focal-plane instruments. One of these, the X-ray…