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Luminous quasars are powerful targets to investigate the role of feedback from supermassive black-holes (BHs) in regulating the growth phases of BHs themselves and of their host galaxies, up to the highest redshifts. Here we investigate the…

Recent X-ray surveys with Chandra and XMM-Newton have found several genuine Type II quasars, the long sought-after population of high-luminosity (high-redshift) Seyfert 2 galaxies, and a sizable number of Type II quasar candidates. However,…

X-ray and optical observations of quadruply lensed quasars can provide a microarcsecond probe of the lensed quasar, corresponding to scale sizes of \~10^2-10^4 gravitational radii of the central black hole. This high angular resolution is…

Steep soft X-ray (0.1-2 keV) quasars share several unusual properties: narrow Balmer lines, strong FeII emission, large and fast X-ray variability, rather steep 2-10 keV spectrum. These intriguing objects have been suggested to be the…

Our aim is to explore the nature of emission line galaxies by combining high-resolution observations obtained in different bands to understand which objects are powered by an Active Galactic Nucleus(AGN). From the spectroscopic Palomar…

The detailed workings of the central engines of powerful quasars remain a mystery. This is primarily due to the fact that, at their cosmological distances, the inner regions of these quasars are spatially unresolvable. Reverberation mapping…

(Abridged) We analyzed the {\it Chandra} and {\it XMM-Newton} archival observations for 72 type 2 quasars at $z<1$. These objects were was selected based on the [O III]$\lambda$5007 optical emission line which we assume to be an approximate…

Quasars are notable for the luminous power they emit across decades in frequency from the far-infrared through hard X-rays; emission at different frequencies emerges from physical scales ranging from AUs to parsecs. Each wavelength regime…

With close pairs of quasars at different redshifts, a background quasar sightline can be used to study a foreground quasar's environment in absorption. We used a sample of 17 Lyman limit systems with column density N_HI > 10^19 cm^-2…

We are in the process of obtaining a complete sample of exploratory X-ray observations of broad absorption line (BAL) QSOs from the Large Bright Quasar Survey (LBQS). This survey is composed of short (5-7 ks) Chandra ACIS-S3 observations…

Quasar accretion-disk outflows might play an important role in galaxy evolution, but they are notoriously difficult to study due to line saturation and blending problems in the Ly-alpha forest. We circumvent these problems by constructing…

The luminosity of X-ray pulsars is their key parameter determining the geometry and physical conditions of the accretion flow both on the spatial scales of a binary system and on much smaller scales of emitting regions located close to the…

We report X-ray fluxes in the 2--10 keV band from LINERs (low-ionization nuclear emission-line regions) and low-luminosity Seyfert galaxies obtained with the ASCA satellite. Observed X-ray luminosities are in the range between 4e39 and 5e41…

Correctly interpreting observations of sources such as type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) require knowledge of the power spectrum of matter on AU scales - which is very hard to model accurately. Because under-dense regions account for much of the…

We report the first discovery of the emergence of a high-velocity broad-line outflow in a luminous quasar, J105400.40+034801.2 at redshift z ~ 2.1. The outflow is evident in ultraviolet CIV and SiIV absorption lines with velocity shifts v ~…

The broadening of atomic emission lines by high-velocity motion of gas near accreting supermassive black holes is an observational hallmark of quasars. Observations of broad emission lines could potentially constrain the mechanism for…

The nulling interferometers proposed to study planets around other stars are generally well suited for studying small-scale structures surrounding other bright pointlike objects such as the nuclei of active galaxies. Conventional…

The broad emission lines (BELs) of quasars and active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are important diagnostics of the relative abundances and overall metallicity in the gas. Here we present new theoretical predictions for several UV BELs. We focus…

Type II quasars are the long-sought luminous analogs of type II (narrow emission line) Seyfert galaxies, suggested by unification models of active galactic nuclei (AGN) and postulated to account for an appreciable fraction of the cosmic…

(Abridged) We attempt to infer the accretion mechanism and radiative processes giving rise to the SEDs of a well-defined optically-selected sample of LINERs showing a definite detection of broad Halpha emission (LINER 1s). We construct SEDs…