Related papers: Accreting Black Holes
A typical galaxy is thought to contain tens of millions of stellar-mass black holes, the collapsed remnants of once massive stars, and a single nuclear supermassive black hole. Both classes of black holes accrete gas from their…
Fast variability studies of accreting black holes in the Galaxy offer us a unique opportunity to measure the spins of black holes and test the strong-field behavior of general relativity. In this review, I summarize the arguments often used…
Classical black holes are solutions of the field equations of General Relativity. Many astronomical observations suggest that black holes really exist in nature. However, an unambiguous proof for their existence is still lacking. Neither…
This is a general review on the observations and physics of black hole X-ray binaries and microquasars, with the emphasize on recent developments in the high energy regime. The focus is put on understanding the accretion flows and measuring…
The spin of a black hole is an important quantity to study, providing a window into the processes by which a black hole was born and grew. Further, spin can be a potent energy source for powering relativistic jets and energetic particle…
Our understanding of space and time is probed to its depths by black holes. These objects, which appear as a natural consequence of general relativity, provide a powerful analytical tool able to examine macroscopic and microscopic…
In the standard paradigm, astrophysical black holes can be described solely by their mass and angular momentum - commonly referred to as `spin' - resulting from the process of their birth and subsequent growth via accretion. Whilst the mass…
This review covers the main aspects of black hole accretion disk theory. We begin with the view that one of the main goals of the theory is to better understand the nature of black holes themselves. In this light we discuss how accretion…
Accretion onto black holes is one of the most efficient energy source in the Universe. Black hole accretion powers some of the most luminous objects in the universe, including quasars, active galactic nuclei, tidal disruption events,…
Only a small fraction of local galaxies harbor an accreting black hole, classified as an active galactic nucleus (AGN). However, many stellar systems are plausibly expected to host black holes, from globular clusters to nuclear star…
The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the exciting field of black hole quasi-normal modes and its capabilities to test general relativity in the 21st century. After motivating this line of research, we provide a…
A brief summary of the properties of astrophysical black holes is presented. Various modes of accretion are distinguished, corresponding to accretion at rates from well below to well above the Eddington rate. The importance of mass loss is…
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…
In this review, I have tried to focus on the development of the field, from the first speculations to the current lines of research. According to Einstein's theory of general relativity, black holes are relatively simple objects and…
Black holes are defined as a region in spacetime where gravity is so strong that particles and electromagnetic radiation cannot escape. According to their mass, they are classified into three types: stellar-mass black holes,…
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…
Relativistic reflection features are commonly observed in the X-ray spectra of accreting black holes. In the presence of high quality data and with the correct astrophysical model, X-ray reflection spectroscopy can be quite a powerful tool…
We present a broad review on black holes. We analyse some of the fundamental concepts in black hole theory, the observational and theoretical status of stellar and galactic black holes, and their appearance as quantum objects.
Observations of black hole X-ray binaries and active galactic nuclei indicate that the accretion flows around black holes are composed of hot and cold gas, which have been theoretically described in terms of either a hot geometrically thick…
Significant progress has been made in the last few years on understanding how supermassive black holes form and grow. In this paper, we begin by reviewing the spectral signatures of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) ranging from radio to hard…