Related papers: New results from the HRX BL Lac sample

Winds are an important ingredient in the evolution of X-ray binary (XRB) systems, particularly those at high accretion rates such as ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs), because they may regulate the accretion of matter onto the compact…

We present the first X-ray detection of resonant absorption from warm/hot local gas either in our Galaxy, or in the Intergalactic space surrounding our Galaxy, along the line of sight toward the blazar PKS 2155-304. The Chandra HRCS-LETG…

X-ray reflection spectra are an important component in the X-ray spectra of many active galactic nuclei and Galactic black hole candidates. It is likely that reflection takes place from highly ionized surfaces of the accretion disc in some…

Several patterns have been discovered in how some spectral characteristics change during the decaying phase of long (> few s.) GRB pulses. We compare these observed signatures with those expected from a relativistically expanding shell.…

Hyper-luminous X-ray sources (HLXs; L_X>10^41 erg s^-1) are off-nuclear X-ray sources in galaxies and strong candidates for intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs). We have constructed a sample of 169 HLX candidates by combining X-ray…

We study Compton upscattering of low-frequency photons in a converging flow of thermal plasma. The photons escape diffusively and electron scattering is the dominant source of opacity. We solve numerically and approximately analytically the…

We report the first hard X-ray observations with NuSTAR of the BL Lac type blazar PKS 2155-304, augmented with soft X-ray data from XMM-Newton and gamma-ray data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope, obtained in April 2013 when the source…

The spectrum of the quasar PHL 1226 is known to have a strong Mg II and sub-damped Lyman-alpha (sub-DLA) absorption line system with N(HI)=(5+/-2)*10^19 cm^-2 at z=0.1602. Using integral field spectra from the Potsdam Multi Aperture…

We present an X-ray absorption line spectroscopic study of the large-scale hot interstellar medium (HISM) in the Galaxy. We detect Ne IX K$_\alpha$ absorption lines in the {\sl Chandra} grating spectra of seven Galactic low-mass X-ray…

We present results from a search for galaxies that give rise to damped Lyman alpha (DLA), subDLA, and Lyman limit system (LLS) absorption at redshifts 0.1 ~< z ~< 1 in the spectra of background quasars. The sample was formed from a larger…

Multi-wavelength spectroscopy of NGC 5548 revealed remarkable changes due to presence of an obscuring wind from the accretion disk. This broadened our understanding of obscuration and outflows in AGN. Swift monitoring of NGC 5548 shows that…

An ab initio theory is devised for the x-ray photoabsorption cross section of atoms in the field of a moderately intense optical laser (800nm, 10^13 W/cm^2). The laser dresses the core-excited atomic states, which introduces a dependence of…

We report results obtained from a systematic analysis of X-ray lags in a sample of black hole X-ray binaries, with the aim of assessing the presence of reverberation lags and studying their evolution during outburst. We used XMM-Newton and…

Broad-band spectra of accreting X-ray binary pulsars can be fit by a phenomenological model composed by a power law with a high energy rollover above 10 keV, plus a blackbody component with a temperature of few hundred eV. While, at least…

We present near-infrared spectra, obtained with SINFONI and XShooter observations at ESO VLT, of nine dusty, red QSOs at 1.2<z<2.6. The sources are hard X-ray detected, characterized by cold absorption (N_H>10^{21} - 10^{22} cm^{-2}) and…

In recent work with high-resolution grating spectrometers (RGS) aboard XMM-Newton Pinto et al. (2016) have discovered that two bright and archetypal ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) have strong relativistic winds in agreement with…

We present a unified model for the structure and appearance of accretion powered sources across their entire luminosity range from galactic X-ray binaries to luminous quasars, with emphasis on AGN and their phenomenology. Central to this…

We study the X-ray absorption of a complete sample of 99 bright Swift gamma-ray bursts. Over the last few years, a strong correlation between the intrinsic X-ray absorbing column density (N_H(z)) and the redshift was found. This absorption…

Complexities in the X-ray spectrum of the nearby Seyfert 1.2 galaxy MCG-6-30-15 are commonly interpreted in terms of a broad iron line and the associated Compton reflection hump from the innermost relativistic regions of an accretion disk…

Models that seek to unify BL Lacs and low-power radio galaxies predict that the two types of object should show similar isotropically emitted X-ray emission. Testing this is usually limited by difficulties in separating strong X-ray…