Related papers: Observing Galactic Black Hole Sources in Hard X-ra…
Data derived from general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of accretion onto black holes can be used as input to a postprocessing scheme that predicts the radiated spectrum. Combining a relativistic Compton scattering radiation…
Extragalactic Black Hole X-ray Binaries (BH-XRBs) are the most intriguing X-ray sources as some of them are `home' to the most massive stellar-mass BHs ever found. In this work, we conduct a comprehensive study of three massive, eclipsing…
The black hole candidate X-ray transient XTE J1817-330 was observed by the Swift satellite over 160 days of its 2006 outburst with the XRT and UVOT instruments. At the start of the observations, the XRT spectra show that the 0.6-10 keV…
The X-ray emission from accreting black hole (BH) systems displays strong variability. Short reverberation lags are expected between the primary hard X-ray continuum and the reprocessed disc emission. These lags depend on light-travel…
Accreting binaries containing a black hole are stellar systems composed of a normal star and a black hole. Because of the strong gravitational pull of the black hole, matter is removed from the companion star and falls into the compact ob…
The centre of our Milky Way harbours the closest candidate for a supermassive black hole. The source is thought to be powered by radiatively inefficient accretion of gas from its environment. This form of accretion is a standard mode of…
M87 hosts a 3-6 billion solar mass black hole with a remarkable relativistic jet that has been regularly monitored in radio to TeV bands. However, hard X-ray emission \gtrsim 10keV, which would be expected to primarily come from the jet or…
Many upcoming surveys, particularly in the radio and optical domains, are designed to probe either the temporal and/or the spatial variability of a range of astronomical objects. In the light of these high resolution surveys, we review the…
We propose that the X--ray emission from radio quiet AGN and galactic black holes is due to Comptonization of soft thermal photons emitted by the underlying accretion disk in localized structures (blobs). The power per unit area produced by…
We analyzed deep Chandra observations of the Galactic plane region centered at l=28.55, b=-0.03 with the aim to obtain the best possible constraints on the contribution of weak point sources to the Galactic ridge X-ray emission (GRXE) in…
Any cold, optically-thick matter in the vicinity of an accreting black hole, such as the accretion disk, can intercept and reprocess some fraction of the hard X-ray continuum emission, thereby imprinting atomic features into the observed…
The total energy emitted by the growth of massive black holes is large and can be 10-50 per cent of that emitted by stars in the universe. I show how the X-ray Background provides a good measure of this energy and also why most accretion…
We examine unresolved nuclear X-ray sources in 57 brightest cluster galaxies to study the relationship between nuclear X-ray emission and accretion onto supermassive black holes (SMBHs). The majority of the clusters in our sample have…
Accreting black holes radiate in one of several spectral states, switching from one to another for reasons that are as yet not understood. Using the best studied example, Cyg X-1, we identify the geometry and physical conditions…
The physical conditions in the inner parsec of accretion disks believed to orbit the central black holes in active galactic nuclei can be probed by imaging the absorption of background radio emission by ionized gas in the disk. We report…
The X-ray persistence and characteristically soft spectrum of the black hole X-ray binary LMC X-3 make this source a touchstone for penetrating studies of accretion physics. We analyze a rich, 10-year collection of optical/infrared (OIR)…
Understanding the dynamics behind black hole state transitions and the changes they reflect in outbursts has become long-standing problem. The X-ray reflection spectrum describes the interaction between the hard X-ray source (the power-law…
Most black hole candidates exhibit characteristic power-law like hard X-ray emission above $\sim$ 10 keV. In the {\em high state}, in which 2 -- 10 keV luminosity is relatively high, the energy index of the hard X-ray emission is usually…
Luminous accreting stellar mass and supermassive black holes produce power-law continuum X-ray emission from a compact central corona. Reverberation time lags occur due to light travel time-delays between changes in the direct coronal…
The inner few parsecs at the Galactic Center have come under intense scrutiny in recent years, in part due to the exciting broad-band observations of this region, but also because of the growing interest from theorists motivated to study…