Related papers: The Intrinsic Quasar Luminosity Function: Accounti…
We show that the luminosity function of the actively star-forming Lyman break galaxies and the B-band quasar luminosity function at $z = 3$ can be fit reasonably well with the mass function of collapsed galaxy scale dark matter haloes…
Quasars are bright and unobscured active galactic nuclei (AGN) thought to be powered by the accretion of matter around supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies. The temporal variability of a quasar's brightness contains valuable…
Gravitational lensing of a quasar by a spiral galaxy should often be accompanied by damped Lyman-alpha absorption and dust extinction due to the intervening gaseous disk. In nearly edge-on configurations, the surface mass density of the gas…
We propose that supermassive stars may form in quasar accretion disks, and we discuss possible observational consequences. The structure and stability of very massive stars are reviewed. Because of high accretion rates, quasar disks are…
James Webb Space Telescope opens a new window to directly probe luminous quasars powered by billion solar mass black holes in the epoch of reionization and their co-evolution with massive galaxies with unprecedented details. In this paper,…
Weak gravitational lensing is now established as a powerful method to measure mass fluctuations in the universe. It relies on the measurement of small coherent distortions of the images of background galaxies. Even low-level correlations in…
Accretion is the dominant contribution to the cosmic massive black hole density in the Universe today. Yet, modelling it in cosmological simulations is challenging due to the dynamic range involved, as well as the theoretical uncertainties…
We have imaged 45 quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) with redshifts 1.85 < z < 4.26 in JHKs with the KPNO SQIID imager. By combining these data with optical magnitudes from the SDSS we have computed the restframe optical…
We present an alternative but intuitive method of obtaining the true or intrinsic quasar luminosity function through the observed one in the framework of gravitational lensing. Such a so-called inversion of the magnification bias can be…
We describe a new approach to calculating photon trajectories and gravitational lensing effects in the strong gravitational field of the Kerr black hole. These techniques are applied to explore both the imaging and spectral properties of…
Recent quasar microlensing observations have constrained the X-ray emission sizes of quasars to be about 10 gravitational radii, one order of magnitude smaller than the optical emission sizes. Using a new ray-tracing code for the Kerr…
Exceptionally bright quasars with redshifts up to z=6.28 have recently been discovered. Quasars are thought to be powered by the accretion of gas onto supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies. Their maximum (Eddington) luminosity…
A cosmic ray observatory with full-sky coverage can exploit standard anisotropy analysis methods that do not work if part of the celestial sphere is never seen. In particular, the distribution of arrival directions can be fully…
The observed profile of spectral lines from a relativistic accretion disk can constrain parameters such as the disk geometry and the rotation of the central black hole. The formation of the spectral line in a disk generally has been modeled…
The global nonlinear time-dependent evolution of the inertial-acoustic mode instability in accretion disks surrounding black holes has been investigated. The viscous stress is assumed to be proportional to the gas pressure only, i.e.\,,…
We propose an alternative theoretical approach showing how the existence of an extra dimension in RS model can estimate the correction in the Schwarzschild radius of black holes, and consequently its measurability in terms of the variation…
Recent work has demonstrated the potential of gravitationally lensed quasars to extend measurements of black hole spin out to high-redshift with the current generation of X-ray observatories. Here we present an analysis of a large sample of…
We demonstrate that the luminosity function of the recently detected population of star-forming galaxies and the QSO luminosity function at z=3 can be matched with the mass function of dark matter haloes predicted by hierarchical…
As Setti & Woltjer noted back in 1973, quasars could be used to construct the Hubble diagram but the actual application was not that straightforward. It took years to implement the idea successfully. Most of the ways to use quasars for…
The passage of stars through the beam of a lensed quasar can induce violent fluctuations in its apparent brightness. The fluctuations observed in the Huchra lens, (2237+0305), are taken to be the first evidence of this ``microlensing''…