Related papers: Accretion-induced variability links young stellar …
Accretion onto supermassive black holes produces both the dramatic phenomena associated with active galactic nuclei and the underwhelming displays seen in the Galactic Center and most other nearby galaxies. I review selected aspects of the…
Complex turbulent motions are ubiquitously observed in many astrophysical systems. Their origin, however, is still poorly understood. When cosmic structures form, they grow in mass via accretion from the surrounding environment. We propose…
Accretion processes in quasars and active galactic nuclei are still poorly understood, especially as far as the connection between observed spectral properties and physical parameters is concerned. Quasars show an additional degree of…
Microlensing by the stellar population of lensing galaxies provides an important opportunity to spatially resolve the accretion disc structure in strongly lensed quasars. Disc sizes estimated this way are on average larger than the…
A non negligible fraction of white dwarf stars show the presence of heavy elements in their atmospheres. The most accepted explanation for this contamination is the accretion of material coming from tidally disrupted planetesimals, which…
An observational review is provided of the properties of accretion disks around young stars. It concerns the primordial disks of intermediate- and high-mass young stellar objects in embedded and optically revealed phases. The properties…
Accreting white dwarf binaries (AWDs) comprise cataclysmic variables (CVs), symbiotics, AM CVns, and other related systems that host a primary white dwarf (WD) accreting from a main sequence or evolved companion star. AWDs are a product of…
Aperiodic broad-band variability (also known as flickering) is observed throughout all types of accreting compact objects. Many statistical properties of this variability can be naturally explained with the fluctuating accretion disk model,…
The growth of supermassive black holes by merging and accretion in hierarchical models of galaxy formation is studied by means of Monte Carlo simulations. A tight linear relation between masses of black holes and masses of bulges arises if…
I outline the theory of accretion onto black holes, and its application to observed phenomena such as X-ray binaries, active galactic nuclei, tidal disruption events, and gamma-ray bursts. The dynamics as well as radiative signatures of…
Periodic increases in luminosity arising from variable accretion rates have been predicted for some close pre-main sequence binary stars as they grow from circumbinary disks. The phenomenon is known as "pulsed accretion" and can affect the…
We present a flexible framework for constructing physical models of quasar evolution that can incorporate a variety of observational constraints, such as multi-wavelength luminosity functions, estimated masses and accretion rates of active…
What does the temporal evolution of disc winds tell us about accreting systems and the accretion process? Studies of accretion-disc outflows across all mass scales, including accreting white dwarfs, X-ray binaries, and active galactic…
The large majority of the accreting supermassive black holes in the Universe are obscured by large columns of gas and dust. The location and evolution of this obscuring material have been the subject of intense research in the past decades,…
We review the current status of the understanding how the accretion onto the central black hole proceeds in Active Galaxies. Standard accretion disk is a key element in all relatively bright active galaxies like Seyferts and quasars,…
A recent approach to simulating localized feedback from active galactic nuclei by Power et al. (2011) uses an accretion disc particle to represent both the black hole and its accretion disc. We have extrapolated and adapted this approach to…
Accreting black holes and neutron stars at luminosities above 0.01 of the critical Eddington luminosity have a lot of similarities, but also drastic differences in their radiation and power density spectra. The efficiency of energy release…
A new theory of quasars is presented in which the matter of thin accretion disks around black holes is supplied by stars that plunge through the disk. Stars in the central part of the host galaxy are randomly perturbed to highly radial…
Quasars are rapidly accreting supermassive black holes at the center of massive galaxies. They display a broad range of properties across all wavelengths, reflecting the diversity in the physical conditions of the regions close to the…
Accreting compact objects are crucial to understand several important astrophysical phenomena such as Type Ia supernovae, gravitational waves, or X-ray and $\gamma$-ray bursts. In addition, they are natural laboratories to infer fundamental…