Related papers: Accretion, ejection and reprocessing in supermassi…
The technology of Silicon Drift Detectors (SDDs) has been selected for the two instruments aboard the Large Observatory For X-ray Timing (LOFT) space mission. LOFT underwent a three year long assessment phase as candidate for the M3 launch…
We discuss how future X-ray instruments which are under development can contribute to our understanding of the non-thermal Universe. Much progress has been made in the field of X-ray Astronomy recently, thanks to the operation of modern…
SKA's large field of view and high sensitivity at low frequencies will provide almost a complete coverage of the very early rising phase of extragalactic and Galactic transients which undergo a flare or outburst due to an abrupt accretion…
XEUS, the X-ray Evolving Universe Spectroscopy mission, is at present an ESA-ISAS initiative for the study of the evolution of the hot Universe in the post-Chandra/XMM-Newton era. The key science objectives of XEUS are: Search for the…
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…
The International X-ray Observatory (IXO), a joint NASA-ESA-JAXA effort, will address fundamental and timely questions in astrophysics: What happens close to a black hole? How did supermassive black holes grow? How does large scale…
The Constellation X-ray Mission is a high throughput X-ray facility emphasizing observations at high spectral resolution (E/\Delta E \sim 300-3000), and broad energy bandpass (0.25-40 keV). Constellation-X will provide a factor of nearly…
Rotating supermassive black holes produce jets and their origin is connected to magnetic field that is generated by accreting matter flow. There is a point of view that electromagnetic fields around rotating black holes are brought to the…
The EAGLE and EVE Phase A studies for instruments for the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) originated from related top-level scientific questions, but employed different (yet complementary) methods to deliver the required…
The Energetic X-ray Imaging Survey Telescope (EXIST) is under study for the proposed Black Hole Finder Probe, one of the three Einstein Probe missions in NASA's proposed Beyond Einstein Program. EXIST would have unique capabilities: it…
Extreme gravitational lensing refers to the bending of photon trajectories that pass very close to supermassive black holes and that cannot be described in the conventional weak deflection limit. A complete analytical description of the…
The capture of a stellar-mass compact object by a supermassive black hole and the subsequent inspiral (driven by gravitational radiation emission) constitute one of the most important sources of gravitational waves for space-based…
In May 2013, I responded with the present paper to ESA's call for White Papers for the definition of Large missions. This was half a year before the launch of ESA's large astrometry mission Gaia. The present proposal for a Gaia successor…
Line-intensity mapping (LIM) is an emerging approach to survey the Universe, using relatively low-aperture instruments to scan large portions of the sky and collect the total spectral-line emission from galaxies and the intergalactic…
The singular way of scheduling at major observatories has favored certain types of astronomy. This has led to the discrimination of certain types of observations which could not be accommodated. It is the goal of future operations to open…
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) Collaboration recently published the first images of the supermassive black holes in the cores of the Messier 87 and Milky Way galaxies. These observations have provided a new means to study supermassive…
The observation of the shadow of the supermassive black hole M87$^{*}$ by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is sensitive to the spacetime geometry near the circular photon orbit and beyond, and it thus has the potential to test general…
Accretion is a universal astrophysical process that plays a key role in cosmic history, from the epoch of reionization to galaxy and stellar formation and evolution. Accreting stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binaries are one of the best…
The study of extrasolar planets has rapidly expanded to encompass the search for new planets, measurements of sizes and masses, models of planetary interiors, planetary demographics and occurrence frequencies, the characterization of…
Black holes are among the most extreme objects that can be found in the Universe and an ideal laboratory for testing fundamental physics. This article will briefly review the basic properties of black holes as expected from general…