Related papers: The Super-Massive Black Hole close environment in …
Powerful winds driven by active galactic nuclei (AGN) are often invoked to play a fundamental role in the evolution of both supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and their host galaxies, quenching star formation and explaining the tight…
Two related topics are discussed. 1. Accretion onto black holes at low and high (though not very high) rates is believed to proceed adiabatically ({\em ie} non-radiatively). It is argued that the liberated energy is carried off by an…
Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are complex phenomena. At the heart of an AGN is a relativistic accretion disk around a spinning supermassive black hole (SMBH) with an X-ray emitting corona and, sometimes, a relativistic jet. On larger scales,…
Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole (SMBH) in our Galaxy, is dormant today, but it should have gone through multiple gas-accretion episodes in the past billions of years to grow to its current mass of $4\times10^6\,M_\odot$. Each episode…
Accretion in the nuclei of active galaxies may occur chaotically. This can produce accretion discs which are counter-rotating or strongly misaligned with respect to the spin of the central supermassive black hole (SMBH), or the axis of a…
Production and acceleration mechanisms of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) of energy $>10^{20}$eV, clearly beyond the GZK-cutoff limit remain unclear that points to exotic nature of the phenomena. Recent observations of extragalactic…
Observations over the past decade have verified, beyond reasonable doubt, that most galactic nuclei contain massive black holes. Hole masses are being measured and firm evidence for spin is being sought. Attention is now returning to the…
I consider how physical processes scale over eight orders of magnitude in black hole mass, from stellar masses in gamma-ray bursts (GRB) and black-hole X-ray binaries (BHXRB) to supermassive active galactic nuclei (AGN). Accretion rates…
Quasars are high-luminosity active galactic nuclei believed to be powered by accretion of interstellar matter onto a super-massive black hole (SMBH) therein. Most of the observed energy is released in an accretion disk of inspiralling gas…
Observed spectra of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) and luminous X-ray binaries in our Galaxy suggest that both hot (~10^9 K) and cold (~10^6 K) plasma components exist close to the central accreting black hole. Hard X-ray component of the…
There is general consensus that active galactic nuclei (AGNs) derive their radiating power from a supermassive black hole (SMBH) that accretes matter. Yet, their precise powering mechanisms and the resulting growth of the SMBH are poorly…
We report first results from a large project to measure black hole (BH) mass in high accretion rate active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Such objects may be different from other AGNs in being powered by slim accretion disks and showing saturated…
Bright Active Galactic Nuclei are powered by accretion of mass onto the super massive black holes at the centers of the host galaxies. For fainter objects star formation may significantly contribute to the luminosity. We summarize…
Relativistic outflows (mainly observed in the radio) are a characteristic feature of both Galactic stellar mass black holes and supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Simultaneous radio and X-ray observations of Galactic sources have shown that…
The growth of supermassive black holes (SMBH) through accretion is accompanied by the release of enormous amounts of energy which can either be radiated away, as happens in quasars, advected into the black hole, or disposed of in kinetic…
For most of their lifetime, super-massive black holes (SMBHs) commonly found in galactic nuclei obtain mass from the ambient at a rate well below the Eddington limit, which is mediated by a radiatively inefficient, hot accretion flow. Both…
A variety of current models for gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) suggest a common engine - a black hole of several solar masses accreting matter from a disk at a rate 0.01 to 10 solar masses per second. Using a numerical model for relativistic disk…
We consider how the radiation pressure of an accreting supermassive hole (SMBH) affects the interstellar medium around it. Much of the gas originally surrounding the hole is swept into a shell with a characteristic radius somewhat larger…
Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are powered by the accretion of disks of gas onto supermassive black holes (SMBHs). Stars and stellar remnants orbiting the SMBH in the nuclear star cluster (NSC) will interact with the AGN disk. Orbiters…
We report that moderately eccentric flows around supermassive black holes (SMBHs), formed via either circumnuclear gas accretion or tidal disruption events, generate eccentricity cascades (from >0.8 to 0.2 outward), explaining…