English
Related papers

Related papers: Exploring the AGN Accretion Disks using Continuum …

200 papers

We investigate the local supermassive black hole (SMBH) density function and relative mass accretion rates of all active galactic nuclei (AGNs) identified in a volume-limited sample of infrared (IR) bright galaxies (L_IR > 3 x 10^9 L_sun)…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-05-18 Andy D. Goulding , David M. Alexander , Bret D. Lehmer , James R. Mullaney

The brightest steady sources of radiation in the universe, active galactic nuclei (AGN), are powered by gas accretion onto a central supermassive black hole (SMBH). The large sizes and accretion rates implicated in AGN accretion disks are…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-02-17 Marguerite Epstein-Martin , Hiromichi Tagawa , Zoltan Haiman , Rosalba Perna

Accretion disks around supermassive black holes are widely believed to be the dominant source of the optical-ultraviolet continuum in many classes of active galactic nuclei (AGN). We study here the relationship between the continuum colors…

Astrophysics · Physics 2011-02-11 E. W. Bonning , L. Cheng , G. A. Shields , S. Salviander , K. Gebhardt

Modeling the spectral energy distribution (SED) of active galactic nuclei (AGN) plays a very important role in constraining modern cosmological simulations of galaxy formation. Here, we utilize an advanced supermassive black hole (SMBH)…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-03-23 Tong Su , Qi Guo , Erlin Qiao , Wenxiang Pei , Luis C. Ho , Cedric G. Lacey

Over three decades of reverberation mapping (RM) studies on local broad-line active galactic nuclei (AGNs) have measured reliable black-hole (BH) masses for $> 100$ AGNs. These RM measurements reveal a significant correlation between the…

Accretion onto supermassive black holes (SMBHs) powers active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and drives feedback that shapes galaxy evolution. Constraining AGN accretion disk structure is therefore essential for understanding black hole growth and…

Multiple models have been suggested over the years to explain the structure and support of accretion disks around supermassive black holes, from the standard thin thermal-pressure-dominated $\alpha$-disk model to more recent models that…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-04-28 Yashvardhan Tomar , Philip F. Hopkins , Kyle Kremer

Continuum reverberation mapping probes the size scale of the optical continuum-emitting region in active galactic nuclei (AGN). The source of this emission has long been thought to originate from the accretion disk, but recent studies…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-11-11 Jake A. Miller , Edward M. Cackett , Misty C. Bentz , Michael R. Goad , Kirk T. Korista , Ian M. McHardy

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…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2020-11-02 Gaia Fabj , Syeda S. Nasim , Freddy Caban , K. E. Saavik Ford , Barry McKernan , Jillian M. Bellovary

It has remained challenging to reliably identify sub-parsec supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs), despite them being expected to be ubiquitous. We propose a new method using multi-band continuum reverberation mapping to identify…

The broadband spectral energy distribution (SED) of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) is investigated for a well-selected sample composed of $23$ Seyfert 1 galaxies observed simultaneously in the optical/UV and X-ray bands with the Neil Gehrels…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2019-06-12 Huaqing Cheng , Weimin Yuan , He-Yang Liu , A. A. Breeveld , Chichuan Jin , Bifang Liu

The UV-X continuum, the X-ray spectral features, and the variability in these bands provide powerful tools for studying the innermost regions of AGNs from which we gain an insight into the accretion process. In this chapter the discussion…

Astrophysics · Physics 2016-11-03 Suzy Collin

AGNs exhibit a wide range of black hole masses and inflow/outflow properties. It is now possible to probe regions close to the event horizons of nearby SMBHs using VLBI with earth-sized baselines, as performed by the EHT. This study…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-05-23 Bidisha Bandyopadhyay , Christian Fendt , Dominik R. G. Schleicher , Neil M. Nagar , Felipe Agurto-Sepulveda , Javier Pedreros

Accretion disks of active galactic nuclei (AGN) have been proposed as promising sites for producing both (stellar-mass) compact object mergers and extreme mass ratio inspirals. Along with the disk-assisted migration/evolution process,…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-01-05 Zhen Pan , Huan Yang

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…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-06-04 Chris Nixon , Andrew King , Daniel Price

Accretion rates in radio galaxies are typically estimated from optical and total radio flux measurements, incorporating emission from the core, jets, and lobes. These estimates can be used to investigate the link between observed Active…

Thermal reverberation in accretion discs of active galactic nuclei is thought to be the reason of the continuum UV/optical time lags seen in these sources. Recently, we studied thermal reverberation of a standard Novikov-Thorne accretion…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2021-03-17 E. S. Kammoun , I. E. Papadakis , M. Dovciak

As one of the series of papers reporting on a large reverberation mapping campaign of super-Eddington accreting massive black holes (SEAMBHs) in active galactic nuclei (AGNs), we present the results of 10 SEAMBHs monitored spectroscopically…

Spectroscopic reverberation mapping (RM) is a direct approach widely used to estimate the mass of black holes (BHs) in active galactic nuclei (AGNs). However, it is very time consuming and difficult to apply to a large AGN sample. The…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2023-05-30 Shu Wang , Hengxiao Guo , Jong-Hak Woo

We reexamine the hypothesis that the optical/UV/soft X-ray continuum of Active Galactic Nuclei is thermal emission from an accretion disk. Previous studies have shown that fitting the spectra with the standard, optically thick and…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-10-28 Ewa Szuszkiewicz , Matthew A. Malkan , Marek A. Abramowicz