Related papers: Observing Galactic Black Hole Sources in Hard X-ra…
The X-ray emission from bright active galactic nuclei (AGNs) is believed to originate in a hot corona lying above a cold, geometrically thin accretion disk. A highly concentrated corona located within $\sim10$ gravitational radii above the…
We calculate upper bounds on the inner radii of geometrically thin accretion disks in galactic black-hole systems by relating their rapid variability properties to those of neutron stars. We infer that the inner disk radii do not exhibit…
In this thesis a computational tool for modelling spectral features of X-ray sources in a strong gravitational field is developed. Six transfer functions, the gravitational and Doppler shift, lensing, emission angle, relative time delay,…
Here we discuss the effects of strong gravity that can be observed in electromagnetic spectra of active galactic nuclei (AGN). According to the unification model of an AGN, there is a supermassive black hole ($10^7 - 10^9 M_\odot$) in its…
Estimation of the black hole mass in bright X-ray sources of nearby galaxies is crucial to the understanding of these systems and their formation. However, the present allowed black hole mass range spans five order of magnitude (10Msun < M…
Black holes of stellar mass and neutron stars in binary systems are first detected as hard X-ray sources using high-energy space telescopes. Relativistic jets in some of these compact sources are found by means of multiwavelength…
Most supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are accreting at very low levels and are difficult to distinguish from the galaxy centers where they reside. Our own Galaxy's SMBH provides a uniquely instructive exception, and we present a close-up…
We study the relativistic, inviscid, advective accretion flow around the black holes and investigate a key feature of the accretion flow, namely the shock waves. We observe that the shock-induced accretion solutions are prevalent and such…
We calculate the atmospheric structure of an accretion disk around a Kerr black hole and obtain its X-ray spectrum, which exhibits prominent atomic transitions under certain circumstances. The gravitational and Doppler (red)shifts of the C…
An intrinsically narrow line emitted by an accretion disk around a black hole appears broadened and skewed as a result of the Doppler effect and gravitational redshift. The fluorescent iron line in the X-ray band at 6.4-6.9keV is the…
If primordial black holes of $\mathcal{O}(1-100) M_{\odot}$ constitute a significant portion of the dark matter in the Universe, they should be very abundant in our Galaxy. We present here a detailed analysis of the radio and X-ray emission…
Sub milli-arcsecond astrometry and imaging of the black hole Sgr A* at the Galactic centre may become possible in the near future at infrared and sub-millimetre wavelengths. Motivated by observations of short-term infrared and X-ray…
We show that Compton scattering of soft photons with energies near 100 eV in thermally stratified black-hole accretion plasmas with temperatures in the range 100 keV - 1 MeV can give rise to an X-ray spectral hardening near 10 keV. This…
Using the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer we have measured lags of the 9 to 33 keV photons relative to the 2 to 9 keV photons in the timing noise between 0.01 and 100 Hz in the accreting neutron stars 4U 0614+091 and 4U 1705-44. We performed…
Recent work revealed the existence of a galaxy "millimetre fundamental plane of black hole accretion", a tight correlation between nuclear $1$mm luminosity, intrinsic $2$ - $10$keV X-ray luminosity and supermassive black hole mass,…
The colossal power output of active galactic nuclei (AGN) is believed to be fueled by the accretion of matter onto a supermassive black hole. This central accreting region of AGN has hitherto been spatially unresolved and its structure…
We review the properties and behavior X-ray binaries that contain an accreting black hole. The larger majority of such systems are X-ray transients, and many of them were observed in daily pointings with RXTE throughout the course of their…
With recent Chandra observations, at least 60% of the 2-10 keV background is now resolved into discrete sources. Here we present deep optical, NIR, submm, and 20 cm (radio) images, as well as high-quality optical spectra, of a complete…
Galactic X-ray emission is a manifestation of various high-energy phenomena and processes. The brightest X-ray sources are typically accretion-powered objects: active galactic nuclei and low- or high-mass X-ray binaries. Such objects with…
X-rays are a powerful probe of the physical conditions in the nuclei of active galaxies. We review the X-ray properties of radio-quiet AGN, LINERs and ultraluminous IR galaxies based on observations carried out with the X-ray satellite…