Related papers: BlackHoleCam -- Testing general relativity with pu…
Supermassive black hole binaries are the strongest gravitational wave sources in the universe. The systems most likely to be observed with pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) will have particularly high masses ($\gtrsim 10^9 M_\odot$), long periods…
We report on a successful, simultaneous observation and modelling of the millimeter (mm) to near-infrared (NIR) flare emission of the Sgr A* counterpart associated with the supermassive black hole at the Galactic centre (GC). We present a…
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 origin of irradiation and fluorescence of the 6.4 keV bright giant molecular clouds surrounding Sgr A*, the central supermassive black hole of our Galaxy, remains enigmatic. Testing the theory of a past active period of Sgr A* requires…
Current X-ray observations and simulations show that gravitational lensing can be used to infer the structure near the event horizons of black holes, constrain the dynamics and evolution of black-hole accretion and outflows, test general…
We report on recent near-infrared (NIR) and X-ray observations of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the electromagnetic manifestation of the ~4x10^6 solar masses super-massive black hole (SMBH) at the Galactic Center. The goal of these coordinated…
Over the last decade, X-ray observations of Sgr A* have revealed a black hole in a deep sleep, punctuated roughly once per day by brief flares. The extreme X-ray faintness of this supermassive black hole has been a long-standing puzzle in…
In this article we summarise and discuss the infrared, radio, and X-ray emission from the supermassive black hole in the Galactic Centre, SgrA*. We include new results from near-infrared polarimetric imaging observations obtained on May…
It has been proposed that Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) at sub-millimeter waves will allow us to image the shadow of the black hole in the center of our Milky Way, Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), and thereby test basic predictions of…
The sheer number of pulsars discovered by the SKA, in combination with the exceptional timing precision it can provide, will revolutionize the field of pulsar astrophysics. The SKA will provide a complete census of pulsars in both the…
Some Galactic models predict a significant population of radio pulsars close to the our galactic center. Beams from these pulsars could get strongly deflected by the supermassive black hole (SMBH) believed to reside at the galactic center…
Pulsars around the Massive Black Hole (MBH) in the Galactic Center (GC) are expected to be revealed by the incoming facilities (e.g., the Square Kilometre Array). Under a full relativistic framework with the pulsar approximated as a test…
Radio-loud neutron stars known as pulsars allow a wide range of experimental tests for fundamental physics, ranging from the study of super-dense matter to tests of general relativity and its alternatives. As a result, pulsars provide…
We present results of simulations of the spectrum of the accretion flow onto the supermassive black hole in our Galactic Centre, Sagittarius A*, generated with a coupling of Monte-Carlo (MC) radiation and general relativistic…
We show that the magnetic dipole and gravitational radiation emitted by a pulsar can undergo superradiant scattering off a spinning black hole companion. We find that the relative amount of superradiant modes in the radiation depends on the…
We present results of models of the physical space and parameters of the accretion disk of Sagittarius A*, as well as simulations of its emergent spectrum. This begins with HARM, a 2D general relativistic magneto-hydrodynamic (GRMHD) model,…
The five millisecond pulsars that inhabit NGC 6752 display locations or accelerations that are quite unusual compared to all other pulsars known in globular clusters. In particular PSR-A, a binary pulsar, lives in the cluster halo, while…
General relativity has passed all solar system experiments and neutron star based tests, such as binary pulsar observations, with flying colors. A more exotic arena for testing general relativity is in systems that contain one or more black…
We study model images and polarization maps of Sagittarius A* at 230 GHz. We post-process GRMHD simulations and perform a fully relativistic radiative transfer calculation of the emitted synchrotron radiation to obtain polarized images for…
Observations of the Galactic center region with the H.E.S.S. telescopes have established the existence of a steady, extended source of gamma-ray emission coinciding with the position of the super massive black hole Sgr A*. This is a…