Related papers: Spikey: Self-Lensing Flares from Eccentric SMBH Bi…
We study the optical light curves - primarily probing the variable emission from the accretion disk - of ~ 900 extreme variability quasars (EVQs, with maximum flux variations more than 1 mag) over an observed-frame baseline of ~ 16 years…
Investigating the spectral and temporal characteristics of the X-rays coming from Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) is essential to our development of a more complete understanding of the emission mechanisms in this supermassive black hole located at…
A fraction of Galactic stars have compact companions which could be white dwarfs (WDs), neutron stars (NSs) or stellar-mass black holes (SBHs). In a detached and edge-on binary system including a main-sequence star and a compact object…
The supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), at the centre of the Milky Way undergoes regular flaring activity which is thought to arise from the innermost region of the accretion flow. We performed the monitoring observations of…
Supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) in galactic nuclei are thought to be a common by-product of major galaxy mergers. We use simple disk models for the circumbinary gas and for the binary-disk interaction to follow the orbital decay…
We report on the properties of eclipsing binaries from the Kepler mission with a newly developed photometric modeling code, which uses the light curve, spectral energy distribution of each binary, and stellar evolution models to infer…
The cataclysmic variable MV Lyr was present in the Kepler field yielding a light curve with the duration of almost 1500 days with 60 second cadence. Such high quality data of this nova-like system with obvious fast optical variability show…
We have calculated variability Doppler boosting factors, Lorentz factors, and viewing angles for a large sample of sources by using total flux density observations at 22 and 37 GHz and VLBI data. We decomposed the flux curves into…
We carried out spectroscopic observations with Subaru/HDS of 50 solar-type superflare stars found from Kepler data. More than half (34 stars) of the target stars show no evidence of the binary system, and we confirmed atmospheric parameters…
We compare the peak optical luminosity with the orbital period for a sample of 22 stellar-mass black hole candidates with good measurements of both quantities. We find that the peak absolute magnitude for the outbursts follows a linear…
We present high resolution optical and UV spectra of the 46 min orbital period, helium binary, GP Com. Our data contains simultaneous photometric correction which confirms the flaring behaviour observed in previous optical and UV data. In…
Binary systems containing a compact object may exhibit periodic brightening episodes due to gravitational lensing as the compact object transits the companion star. Such ``self-lensing'' signatures have been detected before for white dwarf…
We searched optical/UV/IR counterparts of seven supersoft X-ray sources (SSS) in M31 in the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) "Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury" (PHAT) archival images and photometric catalog. Three of the SSS were…
Observations of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) in near-infrared (NIR) show irregular flaring activity. Flares coincide with astrometric rotation of brightness centroid and with looping patterns in fractional linear polarization. These signatures…
Hierarchical assembly models predict a population of supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries. These are not resolvable by direct imaging but may be detectable via periodic variability (or nanohertz frequency gravitational waves). Following…
We present an analytic model for computing the luminosity and spectral evolution of flares caused by a supermassive black hole impacting the accretion disc of another supermassive black hole. Our model includes photon diffusion, emission…
We perform simulations of magnetohydrodynamic accretion onto equal-mass, nonspinning binary black holes in 3+1 full general relativity addressing the effects of orbital eccentricity. We find that binary black holes with non-negligible…
(abridged) Using the particularly long gravitational microlensing event OGLE-2014-BLG-1186 with a time-scale $t_\mathrm{E}$ ~ 300 d, we present a methodology for identifying the nature of localised deviations from single-lens point-source…
The environment near super massive black holes (SMBHs) in galactic nuclei contain a large number of stars and compact objects. A fraction of these are likely to be members of binaries. Here we discuss the binary population of stellar black…
The unparalleled photometric data obtained by NASA's Kepler space telescope led to an improved understanding of red giant stars and binary stars. Seismology allows us to constrain the properties of red giants. In addition to eclipsing…