Related papers: An Extremely Luminous Flare Recorded from a Superm…

Accreting supermassive black holes (SMBHs) can exhibit variable emission across the electromagnetic spectrum and over a broad range of timescales. The variability of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) in the ultraviolet and optical is usually at…

We report a serendipitous discovery of six very low-luminosity active galactic nuclei (AGNs) only by optical variability in one-month baseline. The detected flux variability is ~ 1-5% of the total luminosity of host galaxies. Careful…

We argue that the `changing look' AGN recently reported by LaMassa et al. could be a luminous flare produced by the tidal disruption of a super-solar mass star passing just a few gravitational radii outside the event horizon of a $\sim 10^8…

Quasi-periodic eruptions (QPEs) are rapid, recurring X-ray bursts from supermassive black holes, believed to result from interactions between accretion disks and surrounding matter. The galaxy SDSS1335+0728, previously stable for two…

We present a review of the topics of X-ray stellar tidal disruption events (TDEs) and changing-look active galactic nuclei (AGN). Stars approaching a supermassive black hole (SMBH) can be tidally disrupted and accreted. TDEs were first…

We report the discovery of an exceptional MIR flare in a Type 2 AGN, SDSS J165726.81+234528.1, at $z=0.059$. This object brightened by 3 mag in the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) $W1$ and $W2$ bands between 2015 and 2017 (and is…

We present a model that explains some extreme variability phenomena observed in active galactic nuclei (AGN). In this model, an orbiting companion interacts with the accretion disk surrounding the central supermassive black hole (SMBH).…

Massive black holes are believed to reside at the centres of most galaxies. They can be- come detectable by accretion of matter, either continuously from a large gas reservoir or impulsively from the tidal disruption of a passing star, and…

Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are believed to be powered by accretion of matter onto a supermassive black hole. A fundamental ingredient in shaping our understanding of AGN is their variability across the entire electromagnetic spectrum.…

Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are highly energetic astrophysical sources powered by accretion onto supermassive black holes in galaxies, which present unique observational signatures covering the full electromagnetic spectrum (and more) over…

We report new Herschel observations of 25 z=4.8 extremely luminous optically selected active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Five of the sources have extremely large star forming (SF) luminosities, L_SF, corresponding to SF rates (SFRs) of…

Mergers of spinning black holes can give recoil velocities from gravitational radiation up to several thousand km/s. A recoiling supermassive black hole in an AGN retains the inner part of its accretion disk. Marginally bound material…

Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) represent the growth phases of the supermassive black holes in the center of almost every galaxy. Powerful, highly ionized winds, with velocities $\sim 0.1- 0.2c$ are a common feature in X--ray spectra of…

Using archival SDSS multi-epoch imaging data (Stripe 82), we have searched for the tidal disruption of stars by super-massive black holes in non-active galaxies. Two candidate tidal disruption events (TDEs) are identified. They have optical…

Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are known to exhibit stochastic variability across a wide range of timescales and wavelengths. AGN flares are extreme outbursts that deviate from this typical behavior and may trace a range of energetic…

The origin of cosmic high-energy neutrinos remains largely unexplained. For high-energy neutrino alerts from IceCube, a coincidence with time-variable emission has been seen for three different types of accreting black holes: (1) a…

Most of the action in Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) occurs within a few tens of gravitational radii from the supermassive black hole, where matter in the accretion disk may lose up to almost half of its energy with a copious production of…

The extremes of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) variability offer valuable new insights into the drivers and physics of AGN. We discuss some of the most extreme cases of AGN variability; the highest amplitudes, deep minima states, extreme…

Astrophysical events that occur in active galactic nucleus (AGN) disks are believed to differ significantly from the ordinary in the interstellar medium. We show that stars located in the outer region of the AGN disk would explode near the…

We predict a new class of very intense, short-duration AGN flares capable of accelerating the highest energy cosmic rays, resulting from the tidal disruption of a star or from a disk instability. The rate and power of these flares readily…