Related papers: A Dyson Sphere around a black hole
In this paper we analyze a binary system consisting of a star and a rotating black hole. The electromagnetic radiation emitted by the star interacts with the background of the black hole and stimulates the production of dilaton waves. We…
Active Galactic Nuclei are powered by accretion of matter onto a supermassive black hole (SMBH) of mass Mbh ~ 10^{5}-10^{9} Msun. The accretion process is indeed the most efficient mechanism for energy release we currently know of, with up…
The new high energy data coming mainly from the Fermi and Swift satellites and from the ground based Cerenkov telescopes are making possible to study not only the energetics of blazar jets, but also their connection to the associated…
We investigate the microlensing detectability of extraterrestrial technosignatures originating from Dyson sphere \textendash like structures, such as Dyson Swarms surrounding primordial black holes (PBHs). These hypothetical swarms consist…
We search for nearby, isolated, accreting, ``stellar-mass'' (3 to $100M_\odot$) black holes. Models suggest a synchrotron spectrum in visible wavelengths and some emission in X-ray wavelengths. Of 3.7 million objects in the Sloan Digital…
The total energy emitted by the growth of massive black holes is large and can be 10-50 per cent of that emitted by stars in the universe. I show how the X-ray Background provides a good measure of this energy and also why most accretion…
Life is dependent on the income of energy with low entropy and the disposal of energy with high entropy. On Earth, the low-entropy energy is provided by solar radiation and the high-entropy energy is disposed as infrared radiation emitted…
It has been hypothesized that advanced technological civilizations will construct giant space colonies and supporting infrastructures to orbit about their home stars. With data from recent satellites that operate at infrared and optical…
We study the relativistic, inviscid, advective accretion flow around the black holes and investigate a key feature of the accretion flow, namely the shock waves. We observe that the shock-induced accretion solutions are prevalent and such…
We use the integrated spectrum of the X-ray background and quasars Spectral Energy Distribution to derive the contribution of quasars to the energy output of the Universe. We find a lower limit for the energy from accretion onto black holes…
This review outlines the observations that now provide an overwhelming scientific case that the center of our Milky Way Galaxy harbors a supermassive black hole. Observations at infrared wavelength trace stars that orbit about a common…
The images of supermassive black holes surrounded by optically-thin, radiatively-inefficient accretion flows, like those observed with the Event Horizon Telescope, are characterized by a bright ring of emission surrounding the black-hole…
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…
Astronomers have discovered two populations of black holes: (i) stellar-mass black holes with masses in the range 5 to 30 solar masses, millions of which are present in each galaxy in the universe, and (ii) supermassive black holes with…
Spectral formation in steady state, spherical accretion onto neutron stars and black holes is examined by solving numerically and analytically the equation of radiative transfer. The photons escape diffusively and their energy gains come…
A common consequence of accretion onto black holes is the formation of powerful, relativistic jets that escape the system. In the case of supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies this has been known for decades, but for…
Most of the luminosity of accreting black hole is emitted in the X-ray band. This radiation is believed to emerge, through inverse Compton process, from a hot (Te ~ 10^8 -10^9 K) optically thin (Thomson optical depth ~ 1) plasma probably…
We have embarked in an HST program to determine the masses of black holes in spiral galaxies directly by measuring the line emission arising from an extended accretion disk. For each of the galaxies in our sample we have measured the…
The centre of our Milky Way harbours the closest candidate for a supermassive black hole. The source is thought to be powered by radiatively inefficient accretion of gas from its environment. This form of accretion is a standard mode of…
Loosely inspired by the somewhat fanciful notion of detecting an arbitrarily advanced alien civilization, we consider a general-relativistic thin-shell Dyson mega-sphere completely enclosing a central star-like object, and perform a full…