Related papers: X-ray illuminated accretion discs and quasar micro…
We study the Fourier time-lags due to the Comptonization of disc-emitted photons in a spherical, uniform, and stationary X-ray corona, which located on the rotational axis of the black hole. We use Monk, a general relativistic Monte-Carlo…
There are over 100 Be stars that are known to have neutron star companions but only one such system with a black hole. Previous theoretical work suggests this is not due to their formation but due to differences in X-ray luminosity. It has…
Hard X-rays observed in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) are thought to originate from the Comptonization of the optical/UV accretion disk photons in a hot corona. Polarization studies of these photons can help to constrain the corona geometry…
The observations and theory of the exciting new class of galactic black hole X-ray transients is reviewed. Seven of these systems have measured mass functions or mass estimates in excess of stable neutron stars, making them excellent black…
Microlensing perturbations to the flux ratios of gravitationally lensed quasar images can vary with wavelength because of the chromatic dependence of the accretion disk's apparent size. Multiwavelength observations of microlensed quasars…
Recurring outbursts associated with matter flowing onto compact stellar remnants (black-holes, neutron stars, white dwarfs) in close binary systems, provide strong test beds for constraining the poorly understood accretion process. The…
We report estimates of the X-ray coronal size of active galactic nuclei in the lamppost geometry. In this commonly adopted scenario, the corona is assumed for simplicity to be a point-like X-ray source located on the axis of the accretion…
We have calculated the relativistic reflection component of the X-ray spectra of accretion disks in active galactic nuclei (AGN). Our calculations have shown that the spectra can be significantly modified by the motion of the accretion flow…
We investigate the central sub-arcsec region of the low-luminosity active galactic nucleus NGC 1052, using a high-angular resolution dataset that covers 10 orders of magnitude in frequency. This allows us to infer the continuum emission…
Some ultraluminous X-ray sources in nearby galaxies show soft components resembling thermal disc emission. Calculations based on blackbody emission then indicate that the accreting black holes at the centres of these discs have masses of…
In this paper we consider the process of alignment of a spinning black hole and a surrounding misaligned accretion disc. We use a simplified set of equations, that describe the evolution of the system in the case where the propagation of…
We present a systematic X-ray and multiwavelength study of a sample of 47 active galactic nuclei (AGNs) with reverberation-mapping measurements. This sample includes 21 super-Eddington accreting AGNs and 26 sub-Eddington accreting AGNs.…
Luminous active galactic nuclei (AGN) and X-Ray binaries (XRBs) often contain geometrically thin, radiatively cooled accretion discs. According to theory, these are -- in many cases -- initially highly misaligned with the black hole…
We compare the microlensing-based continuum emission region size measurements in a sample of 15 gravitationally lensed quasars with estimates of luminosity-based thin disk sizes to constrain the temperature profile of the quasar continuum…
The broad X-ray iron line, detected in many active galactic nuclei, is likely to be produced by fluorescence from the X-ray illuminated central parts of an accretion disc close to a supermassive black hole. The time-averaged shape of the…
We compare standard models of accretion disks around black holes that include the appropriate zero-torque inner boundary condition and relativistic effects on the emission and propagation of radiation. The comparison is performed adopting…
It is thought that ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) are mainly powered by super-Eddington accreting neutron stars or black holes as shown by recent discovery of X-ray pulsations and relativistic winds. This work presents a follow up study…
Relativistically blurred reflection from the accretion disc provides a powerful probe of the extreme environments close to supermassive black holes; the inner regions of the accretion flow and the corona that produces the intense X-ray…
The peaks of the spectra of the accretion disks surrounding massive black holes in quasars are in the far-UV or soft X-ray band, which are usually not observed. However, in the disk corona model, the soft photons from the disk are…
The X-ray properties of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) depend on their underlying physical parameters, particularly the accretion rate. We identified eight reverberation-mapped AGNs with some of the largest known accretion rates without…