Related papers: Imaging ultra-compact objects with radiatively ine…
RX J1140.1+0307 (hereafter RX1140) is a Narrow Line Seyfert 1 (NLS1) with one of the lowest black hole masses known in an AGN (M ${\le} 10^6$ M$_{\odot}$). We show results from two new {\it XMM-Newton} observations, showing soft 2-10~keV…
We run three long-timescale general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of radiatively inefficient accretion flows onto non-rotating black holes. Our aim is to achieve steady-state behavior out to large radii and understand the…
The low-luminosity black hole Sgr A* provides a testbed for models of Radiatively Inefficient Accretion Flows (RIAFs). Recent sub-millimeter linear polarization measurements of Sgr A* have provided evidence that the electrons in the…
In this paper we study gravitational lensing in the strong field limit from the perspective of cosmic censorship, to investigate whether or not naked singularities, if at all they exist in nature, can be distinguished from black holes. We…
We present a new picture for the central regions of Black Hole X-ray Binaries. In our view, these central regions have a multi-flow configuration which consists in (1) an outer standard accretion disc down to a transition radius r_J, (2) an…
Several massive black holes exhibit flux variability on time scales that correspond to source sizes of the order of few Schwarzschild radii. We survey the potential of near-infrared and X-ray polarimetry to constrain physical properties of…
In the past few years, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has provided the first-ever event horizon-scale images of the supermassive black holes (BHs) (M87*) and Sagittarius A$^*$ (Sgr A*). The next-generation EHT project is an extension of…
We study the optical appearance of a thin accretion disk around the strongly naked static Janis-Newman-Winicour singularity. The solution does not possess a photon sphere, which results in the formation of a complex structure of bright…
Recently, it has been reported that photons can traverse naked singularities in the Janis-Newman-Winicour and Born-Infeld spacetimes when these singularities are appropriately regularized. In this paper, we investigate observational…
We study the optical appearance of a thin accretion disk around compact objects within the Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity. Considering static spherically symmetric black holes and naked singularities we search for characteristic signatures…
A new general relativistic radiation magnetohydrodynamical code KORAL, is described, which employs the M1 scheme to close the radiation moment equations. The code has been successfully verified against a number of tests. Axisymmetric…
Perturbations of Schwarzschild-Droste black holes in the Regge-Wheeler gauge benefit from the availability of a wave equation and from the gauge invariance of the wave function, but lack smoothness. Nevertheless, the even perturbations…
An analog of black hole can be realized in the low-temperature laboratory. The horizon can be constructed for the `relativistic' ripplons (surface waves) living on the brane. The brane is represented by the interface between two superfluid…
We propose a simple, analytic dual-cone accretion model for horizon scale images of the cores of Low-Luminosity Active Galactic Nuclei (LLAGN), including those observed by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). Our underlying model is of…
We first advance a mathematical novelty that the three geometrically and topologically distinct objects mentioned in the title can be exactly obtained from the Jordan frame vacuum Brans I solution by a combination of coordinate…
We examine the internal properties of the most massive ultracompact dwarf galaxy (UCD), M59-UCD3, by combining adaptive optics assisted near-IR integral field spectroscopy from Gemini/NIFS, and Hubble Space Telescope (HST) imaging. We use…
The Event Horizon Telescope has recently observed the images and shadows of the compact objects M87$^*$ and Sgr A$^*$ at the centres of the galaxies Messier 87 and Milky Way. This has opened up a new window in observational astronomy to…
In this paper we revisit the analysis of the ringdown frequencies in the form of quasi-normal modes for Schwarzschild,Schwarzschild de-Sitter and Reissner-Nordstr\"om space-times. We plot these frequencies, using the third-order WKB…
The `fundamental plane of black hole accretion' (FP), a relation between the radio luminosities ($L_R$), X-ray luminosities ($L_X$), and masses ($M_{BH}$) of hard/quiescent state black hole binaries and low-luminosity active galactic…
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…