Related papers: Modeling bias in supermassive black hole spin meas…
The two established techniques for measuring black hole spin in X-ray binaries often yield conflicting results, which must be resolved before either method may be deemed robust. In practice, black hole spin measurements based on fitting the…
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…
We describe a program that we have embarked on to estimate the spins of stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binaries. We fit the continuum X-ray spectrum of the radiation from the accretion disk using the standard thin disk model, and extract…
X-ray reflection spectroscopy is currently one of the leading techniques for studying the inner part of accretion disks around black holes, measuring black hole spins, and even testing fundamental physics in strong gravitational fields.…
The X-ray reflection features of irradiated accretion disks around black holes enable us to probe the effects of strong gravity. We investigate to which precision the reflection signs, i.e. the iron K-line and the Comptonized hump, can be…
Several massive black holes exhibit flux variability on time scales that correspond to source sizes of the order of few Schwarzschild radii. We survey the potential of near-infrared and X-ray polarimetry to constrain physical properties of…
We present a general relativistic accretion disc model and its application to the soft-state X-ray spectra of black hole binaries. The model assumes a flat, optically thick disc around a rotating Kerr black hole. The disc locally radiates…
X-rays are emitted from the corona above the orbiting matter of the accretion disk and travel either directly to us or illuminate the disk. This illumination of the inner disk is enhanced by gravitational light bending, which focuses the…
Fitting the thermal continuum emission of accreting black holes observed across X-ray bands represents one of the principle means of constraining the properties (mass and spin) of astrophysical black holes. Recent ''continuum fitting''…
In astronomy, the problem of black holes is arguably second in importance only to the problem of cosmology. A current frontier in black hole research is the measurement of spin. During the past three years, the spins of several stellar-mass…
Compact binary coalescences are the most promising sources of gravitational waves (GWs) for ground based detectors. Binary systems containing one or two spinning black holes are particularly interesting due to spin-orbit (and eventual…
In this paper,We present a simple relativistic approach to analyze the flux striking the disk which is possibly from a source up the Black hole.The X-ray source is locate above an accretion disc orbiting around the black hole,this…
We report on a deep Suzaku observation of the stellar-mass black hole GX 339-4 in outburst. A clear, strong, relativistically-shaped iron emission line from the inner accretion disk is observed. The broad-band disk reflection spectrum…
The co-evolution of a supermassive black hole with its host galaxy through cosmic time is encoded in its spin. At $z>2$, supermassive black holes are thought to grow mostly by merger-driven accretion leading to high spin. However, it is…
Recently, the issue of the role of the Eddington limit in accretion discs became a matter of debate. While the classical (spherical) Eddington limit is certainly an over-simplification, it is not really clear how to treat it in a flattened…
The compact primary in the X-ray binary Cygnus X-1 was the first black hole to be established via dynamical observations. We have recently determined accurate values for its mass and distance, and for the orbital inclination angle of the…
Gravitational lensing of a light source by a black hole leads to appearance of higher-order images produced by photons that loop around the black hole before reaching the observer. Higher-order images were widely investigated numerically…
We perform a detailed study of the black hole spin of Cyg X-1, using accurate broad-band X-ray data obtained in the soft spectral state by simultaneous NICER and NuSTAR observations, supplemented at high energies by INTEGRAL data. We use…
Based on a new estimation of their thickness, the global properties of relativistic slim accretion disks are investigated in this work. The resulting emergent spectra are calculated using the relativistic ray-tracing method, in which we…
This paper examines the general relativistic model of a geometrically thick configuration of an accretion disc around an electrically charged black hole in an accelerated motion, as described by the C-metric family. We aim to study the…