Related papers: Extreme AGN variability: evidence of magnetically …
We argue that the X-ray and UV flux illuminating the parsec-scale accretion disk around luminous active galactic nuclei (AGN) is super-Eddington with respect to the local far-infrared dust opacity. The far infrared opacity may be larger…
Short-term variability and multiple velocity components in the powerful highly ionized wind of the archetypal UFO PG 1211+143 are indicative of inner disc instabilities or short-lived accretion events. The detection of a high velocity (~…
Although during the last decade new observations and new theoretical results have brought better understanding of the physics of accretion onto compact objects, many old and several new questions and problems await answers and solutions. I…
As a class, LINERs and Low-Luminosity AGN tend to show little or no significant short-term variability (i.e., with time-scales less than a day). This is a marked break for the trend of increased variability in Seyfert 1 galaxies with…
Obscuration from clumpy accretion-disk winds has been invoked to explain the extreme X-ray weakness and X-ray variability observed in a substantial fraction of super-Eddington accreting quasars. We present a comprehensive study of the…
X-ray observations of the tidal disruption event (TDE) candidate AT 2019avd show drastic variabilities in flux and spectral shape over hundreds of days, providing clues on the accretion disc-corona evolution. We utilize a disc-corona model,…
Multiple spectroscopic lines of different elements observed in winds from X-ray binaries (XRBs), based on one zone model, indicate super-solar abundance of elements, e.g. Mg, Si, S, Ar, Ca, Cr, Mn, Co. The one zone model considers similar…
Studying simultaneous optical and X-ray light curves of radio-quiet AGN can help to probe the relationship between very different physical components - the cool, optically thick disk and hot, optically thin corona. Here, we review the…
Blueshifted absorption lines in the X-ray spectra of AGN show that ultra-fast outflows with typical velocities $v \sim 0.1c$ are a common feature of these luminous objects. Such powerful AGN winds offer an explanation of the observed…
Apart from regular, low-level stochastic variability, some AGN occasionally show exceptionally large changes in the luminosity, spectral shape, and/or X-ray absorption. The most notable are the changes of the spectral type when the source…
(abridged) We review how the recent increase in X-ray and radio data from black hole and neutron star binaries can be merged together with theoretical advances to give a coherent picture of the physics of the accretion flow in strong…
(abridged) The soft excess seen in the X-ray spectra of many high mass accretion rate AGN can be well modelled by reflection from a partially ionised accretion disc. However, the derived parameters are often extreme, both in terms of the…
The optical/ultraviolet (UV) variability of quasars has been discovered to be correlated with other quasar properties, such as luminosity, black hole mass and rest-frame wavelength. However,the origin of variability has been a puzzle so…
X-ray observations of Seyfert 1 galaxies offer the unique possibility of observing spectral variability on timescales comparable to the dynamical time of the inner accretion flow. They typically show highly variable lightcurves, with Power…
Recent multi-band variability studies have revealed that active galactic nucleus (AGN) accretion disc sizes are generally larger than the predictions of the classical thin disc by a factor of $2\sim 3$. This hints at some missing key…
Models of X-ray reverberation from extended coronae are developed from general relativistic ray tracing simulations. Reverberation lags between correlated variability in the directly observed continuum emission and that reflected from the…
Accretion discs are present around both stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binaries and supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei. A wide variety of circumstantial evidence implies that many of these discs are warped. The standard…
We present a model for magnetic structured coronae above accretion discs. On the shortest timescales, spatially and temporally correlated coronal flares can explain X-ray temporal and spectral variability observed in Seyfert galaxies. In…
Understanding how mass and angular momentum flow through accretion discs remains a fundamental unsolved problem in astrophysics. Accreting white dwarfs offer an ideal laboratory for addressing this question: their variability occurs on…
The long term X-ray spectral variability of ten active galactic nuclei (AGN) shows a positive spectral index-flux correlation for each object (Sobolewska & Papadakis 2009). An inner advection dominated accretion flow (ADAF) may connect to a…