Related papers: Using AGN lightcurves to map accretion disc temper…
We perform numerical analyses of the structure induced by gravitational instabilities in cooling gaseous accretion discs. For low enough cooling rates a quasi-steady configuration is reached, with the instability saturating at a finite…
Recent monitoring campaigns designed to map the accretion regime in AGN show major discrepancies with models where the optical/ultraviolet (UV) is produced by X-ray-illuminated, optically thick disc material within a few hundred…
We simulate the effects of viscous dissipation of waves that are generated by AGN activity in clusters of galaxies. We demonstrate that the amount of viscous heating associated with the dissipation of these waves can offset radiative…
High cadence, high quality observations of active galactic nuclei (AGN) clearly show continuum variations with lags, relative to the shortest observed variable UV continuum, that increase with wavelength ("lag spectra"). These have been…
Nayakshin & Kazanas (2002) have considered the time-dependent illumination of an accretion disc in Active Galactic Nuclei, in the lamppost model. We extend their study to the flare model, which postulates the release of a large X-ray flux…
The Alcator C-Mod mirror Langmuir probe system has been used to sample data time series of fluctuating plasma parameters in the outboard mid-plane far scrape-off layer. We present a statistical analysis of one second long time series of…
We analyze the broadband photometric light curves of Seyfert 1 galaxies from the Sergeev et al. (2005) sample and find that a) perturbations propagating across the continuum emitting region are a general phenomenon securely detected in most…
Radiation pressure dominated accretion discs around compact objects may have turbulent velocities that greatly exceed the electron thermal velocities within the disc. Bulk Comptonization by the turbulence may therefore dominate over thermal…
[abridged] 1H 0419-577 is a highly-accreting, luminous BLS1 AGN. This study aims to characterise its disc-corona system using, for the first time, simultaneous XMM-Newton and NuSTAR observations, performed in May and November 2018. We…
Recent observations of changing-look active galactic nuclei (AGN) hint at a frequency of accretion activity not fully explained by tidal disruption events (TDEs) stemming from relaxation processes in nucleus star clusters (NSCs),…
We present fast (~200s sampling) ugriz photometry of the low mass AGN NGC 4395 with the Liverpool Telescope, followed by very fast (3s sampling) us, gs, rs, is and zs simultaneous monitoring with HiPERCAM on the 10.4m GTC. These…
The nature of the viscosity operative in hot, two-temperature accretion disks around AGN has been a long-standing, unsolved problem. It has been previously suggested that protons, in conjunction with the turbulent magnetic field that is…
The main characteristics of the average spectrum of radio quiet AGN in the UV and X-ray range are reviewed, and the emission mechanisms are discussed in the framework of accretion disk models, in particular the ``irradiated cold…
The standard thin disk model predicts that when the accretion rate is over a small fraction of the Eddington rate, which corresponds to $L \ga 0.06 L_{Edd}$, the inner region of the disk is radiation-pressure-dominated and thermally…
We propose granularity noise thermometry (GNT), a fluctuation-based optical thermometry scheme that exploits the intrinsic fluctuations of susceptibility arising from atomic discreteness. The power spectral density of transmitted light…
We consider the structure of marginally Toomre-stable starburst disks under the assumption that radiation pressure on dust grains provides the dominant vertical support against gravity. This is particularly appropriate when the disk is…
Warm coronae, thick ($\tau_{\mathrm{T}}\approx 10$-$20$, where $\tau_{\mathrm{T}}$ is the Thomson depth) Comptonizing regions with temperatures of $\sim 1$ keV, are proposed to exist at the surfaces of accretion discs in active galactic…
We investigate aperiodic X-ray flux variability in accreting highly magnetized neutron stars - X-ray pulsars (XRPs). The X-ray variability is largely determined by mass accretion rate fluctuations at the NS surface, which replicate…
The presence of convective and turbulent motions, and the evolution of magnetic fields give rise to existence of temperature fluctuations in stellar atmospheres, active galactic nuclei and other cosmic objects. We observe the time and…
The accretion flow in AGN is not well understood, motivating intensive monitoring campaigns of multiwavelength variability to probe its structure. One of the best of these is the 3 year optical/UV/X-ray approximately daily monitoring…