Related papers: ASTRO-H White Paper - Stellar-Mass Black Holes
An introduction is given to a meeting on the role of massive and stellar black holes in powering non-thermal activity in a rich variety of cosmic sources. Relevant properties of magnetized, spinning black holes are summarized and their…
The `fundamental plane of black hole accretion' (FP), a relation between the radio luminosities ($L_R$), X-ray luminosities ($L_X$), and masses ($M_{BH}$) of hard/quiescent state black hole binaries and low-luminosity active galactic…
Stellar-mass black holes and neutron stars represent extremes in gravity, density, and magnetic fields. They therefore serve as key objects in the study of multiple frontiers of physics. In addition, their origin (mainly in core-collapse…
Using the semi-analytic model Serotina, we investigate the cosmic spin evolution of supermassive black holes incorporating recent results from general relativistic magnetohydrodynamics simulations of spin-down from relativistic jets. We…
Spectroscopy of the broad iron iron with ASCA and BeppoSAX has up opened the innermost regions of accreting black hole systems to detailed study. In this contribution, I discuss how observations with future X-ray missions will extend these…
The mass density of massive black holes observed locally is consistent with the hard X-ray Background provided that most of the radiation produced during their growth was absorbed by surrounding gas. A simple model is proposed here for the…
Accretion onto supermassive black holes powers the most luminous persistent sources in the Universe, the so-called active galactic nuclei, whose emission is characterized by two distinct spectral components: thermal optical/ultraviolet…
Ultra-Luminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are accreting black holes for which their X-ray properties have been seen to be different to the case of stellar-mass black hole binaries. For most of the cases their intrinsic energy spectra are well…
Energetic outflows appear to occur in conjunction with active mass accretion onto supermassive black holes. These outflows are most readily observed in the approximately 10% of quasars with broad absorption lines, where the observer's line…
Electromagnetic and gravitational wave observations indicate that there is dearth of compact objects with mass $\sim 2.5-5~{\rm M_\odot}$. This so-called "mass gap" may be linked to the supernova explosion mechanisms that produce neutron…
This dissertation elaborates on X-ray polarisation features of astrophysical environments near accreting black holes. Although the work was originally assigned to supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei, the results are also…
The majority of the ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) in external galaxies are believed to be accreting black holes in binary systems; some of the black holes could be as massive as $\sim 100-1000 \ms$. We have performed evolution…
The characteristics of black-hole X-ray binaries can be used to obtain information about their evolutionary history and the process of black-hole formation. In this paper I focus on systems with donor masses lower than the inferred…
Black hole binaries show equatorial disc winds at high luminosities, which apparently disappear during the spectral transition to the low/hard state. This is also where the radio jet appears, motivating speculation that both wind and jet…
Powerful winds driven by active galactic nuclei (AGN) are often invoked to play a fundamental role in the evolution of both supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and their host galaxies, quenching star formation and explaining the tight…
We present fully relativistic predictions for the electromagnetic emission produced by accretion disks surrounding spinning and nonspinning supermassive binary black holes on the verge of merging. We use the code Bothros to post-process…
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…
Jets are ubiquitous in accreting black holes. Often ignored, they may be a major contributor to the emitted spectral energy distribution for sub-Eddington black holes. For example, recent observations of radio-to-X-ray correlations and…
Throughout the cosmic history, primordial black holes may experience an efficient phase of baryonic mass accretion from the surrounding medium. While the realm of accretion physics is marked by numerous uncertainties, and a comprehensive…
We study the formation of low-mass X-ray binaries with a black hole as accreting object. The performed semi-analytic analysis reveals that the formation rate of black holes in low-mass X-ray binaries is about two orders of magnitude smaller…