Related papers: A Rapidly Spinning Black Hole Powers the Einstein …
Mass and spin are the only two parameters needed to completely characterize black holes in General Relativity. However, the interaction between black holes and their environment is where complexity lies, as the relevant physical processes…
The origin of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) residing in the centers of most galaxies remains a mystery. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) provided direct imaging of the SMBH Sgr A* at the Milky Way's center, indicating it likely spins…
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration has recently released the first image of a black hole (BH), opening a new window onto tests of general relativity in the strong field regime. In this paper, we derive constraints on the nature…
The spin is an important but poorly constrained parameter for describing supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Using the continuity equation of SMBH number density, we explicitly obtain the mass-dependent cosmological evolution of the radiative…
It is shown that in the Schwarzschild background there exists direct counterpart of the Ba\~{n}ados-Silk-West effect for spinning particles. This means that if two particles collide near the black hole horizon, their energy in the centre of…
A non-monotonic behavior of the velocity gradient of a test particle revolving around a rapidly rotating black hole in the locally non-rotating frame of reference is known as the Aschenbach effect. This effect can serve as a distinguishing…
The compact primary in the X-ray binary Cygnus X-1 was the first black hole to be established via dynamical observations. We have recently determined accurate values for its mass and distance, and for the orbital inclination angle of the…
The Schwarzschild metric has a divergent energy density at the horizon, which motivates a new approach to black holes. If matter is spread uniformly throughout the interior of a supermassive black hole, with mass $M\sim M_\star= 2.34…
We prove that merging supermassive black holes (SMBHs) typically have neither equal masses, nor is their mass ratio too extreme. The majority of such mergers fall into the mass ratio range of 1:30 to 1:3, implying a spin flip during the…
The spin of a black hole retains the memory of how the black hole grew, and can be a potent source of energy for powering relativistic jets. To understand the diagnostic power and astrophysical significance of black hole spin, however, we…
Primordial black holes in the mass range of ground-based gravitational-wave detectors can comprise a significant fraction of the dark matter. Mass and spin measurements from coalescences can be used to distinguish between an astrophysical…
We present an analysis of deep $Chandra$ Low-Energy and High-Energy Transmission Grating archival observations of the extraordinarily luminous radio-quiet quasar H1821+643, hosted by a rich and massive cool-core cluster at redshift $z=0.3$.…
Cosmic strings that are attached to rapidly spinning black holes can extract significant amounts of rotational energy and angular momentum. Here we study the effect on primordial black holes, which are expected to form with one or more…
We discuss constraints on black hole spin and spin-related astrophysics as derived from X-ray spectroscopy. After a brief discussion about the robustness with which X-ray spectroscopy can be used to probe strong gravity, we summarize how…
In many active galaxies, the X-ray reflection features from the innermost regions of the accretion disc are relativistically distorted. This distortion allows us to measure parameters of the black hole such as its spin. The ratio in flux…
I investigate whether useful constraints on the evolution of the relationship between galaxy mass and black hole (BH) mass can be obtained from recent measurements of galaxy stellar mass functions and QSO bolometric luminosity functions at…
During its yearlong outburst in 1975--76, the transient source A0620--00 reached an intensity of 50 Crab, an all-time record for any X-ray binary. The source has been quiescent since. We recently determined accurate values for the black…
Measuring the spins of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in active galactic nuclei (AGN) can inform us about the relative role of gas accretion vs. mergers in recent epochs of the life of the host galaxy and its AGN. Recent advances in…
The peaks of the spectra of the accretion disks surrounding massive black holes in quasars are in the far-UV or soft X-ray band, which are usually not observed. However, in the disk corona model, the soft photons from the disk are…
It is known that the center-of-mass energy of the collision of two massive particles following geodesics around a black hole presents a maximum. The maximum energy increases when the black hole is endowed with spin, and for a maximally…