Related papers: Accreting Black Holes
Black holes are by definition black, and therefore cannot be directly observed by using electromagnetic radiations. Convincing identification of black holes must necessarily depend on the identification of a very specially behaving matter…
The braneworld description of our universe entails a large extra dimension and a fundamental scale of gravity that might be lower by several orders of magnitude as compared to the Planck scale. An interesting consequence of the braneworld…
A solid theoretical understanding of how inflowing, accreting plasma around black holes and other compact objects gives rise to outflowing winds and jets is still lacking, despite decades of observations. The fact that similar processes and…
We describe the most general nature of accretion and wind flows around a compact object and emphasize on the properties which are special to black hole accretion. The angular momentum distribution in the most general solution is far from…
We review the theoretical aspects of gravitational lensing by black holes, and discuss the perspectives for realistic observations. We will first treat lensing by spherically symmetric black holes, in which the formation of infinite…
Models of black hole accretion disks are reviewed, with an emphasis on the theory of hard X-ray production. The following models are considered: i) standard, ii) super-critical, iii) two-temperature, and iv) disk+corona. New developments…
In this book chapter, we will briefly review the current empirical understanding of the relation between accretion state and and outflows in accreting stellar mass black holes. The focus will be on the empirical connections between X-ray…
In this review we shall comment on a few recent findings which strengthen the view that the black hole accretion has substantial amount of sub-Keplerian component. The manifestation of this component is many fold. We discuss some of them. A…
Electromagnetic observations have been used over the past decades to understand the nature of black holes and the material around them. Our ability to learn about the fundamental physics relies on our understanding of two key ingredients in…
What is going on (as of August 2008) at the interface between theoretical general relativity, string-inspired models, and observational astrophysics? Quite a lot. In this mini-survey I will make a personal choice and focus on four specific…
In this chapter, I present a summary of observational tests of the basic picture of disk accretion. An emphasis is placed on tests relevant to black holes, but many of the fundamental results are drawn from studies of other classes of…
We review the recent multifrequency studies of galactic black hole binaries, aiming at revealing the underlying emission processes and physical properties in these systems. The optical and infrared observations are important for determining…
Black holes have their proper oscillations, which are called the quasi-normal modes. The proper oscillations of astrophysical black holes can be observed in the nearest future with the help of gravitational wave detectors. Quasi-normal…
The spins of ten stellar black holes have been measured using the continuum-fitting method. These black holes are located in two distinct classes of X-ray binary systems, one that is persistently X-ray bright and another that is transient.…
Recent advances in general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic modeling of jets offer unprecedented insights into the inner workings of accreting black holes that power the jets in active galactic nuclei (AGN) and other accretion systems. I…
This review gives an introduction to various attempts to understand the quantum nature of black holes. The first part focuses on thermodynamics of black holes, Hawking radiation, and the interpretation of entropy. The second part is devoted…
This paper is concerned with several not-quantum aspects of black holes, with emphasis on theoretical and mathematical issues related to numerical modeling of black hole space-times. Part of the material has a review character, but some new…
The recent detections of gravitational waves from binary systems of black holes are in remarkable agreement with the predictions of General Relativity. In this pedagogical mini-review, I will go through the physics of the different phases…
The brane-world description of our universe entails a large extra dimension and a fundamental scale of gravity that might be lower by several orders of magnitude compared to the Planck scale. An interesting consequence of the brane-world…
Accretion is the dominant contribution to the cosmic massive black hole density in the Universe today. Yet, modelling it in cosmological simulations is challenging due to the dynamic range involved, as well as the theoretical uncertainties…