Related papers: X-Ray Microlensing of Bright Quasars

Understanding the properties of the hot corona is very important for studying the accretion disks in black hole X-ray binary systems. Using the Monte-Carlo technique to simulate the inverse Compton scattering process between disk photons…

Mrk 590 is a Changing Look AGN currently in an unusual repeat X-ray and UV flaring state. Here, we report on deep X-ray observations with XMM-Newton, NuSTAR, and NICER, obtained at a range of X-ray flux levels. We detect a prominent soft…

We study the evolution of some microquasars during their outbursts as observed with the X-ray telescopes RXTE and INTEGRAL. We focus on the interplay between the accretion disc, and the medium responsible for the production of the hard…

We note that the solution of accretion disk dynamics for an initial delta-function mass distribution gives a light curve that fits both the rise and the decay pattern of the outburst light curves of black-hole soft X-ray transients (BSXTs)…

We present results from a monitoring campaign performed with the Chandra X-ray Observatory of the gravitationally lensed quasars RX J1131-1231 and HE 1104-1805. We detect significant X-ray variability in all images of both quasars. The flux…

We present a systematic, analytical study of geometrically thin, optically thick accretion disc solutions for magnetized turbulent flows, with an alpha-like viscosity prescription. Under the only assumptions that (1) Magneto-Rotational…

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…

X-ray inter-band time lags are observed during the outbursts of black hole X-ray binaries (BHXRBs). Timing analysis of fast variability in low Fourier frequency bands shows that high-energy photons lag behind low-energy photons, a…

We present a model of optically thin, two-temperature, accretion flows using an exact Monte Carlo treatment of global Comptonization, with seed photons from synchrotron and bremsstrahlung emission, as well as with a fully general…

Recent quasar microlensing observations have constrained the X-ray emission sizes of quasars to be about 10 gravitational radii, one order of magnitude smaller than the optical emission sizes. Using a new ray-tracing code for the Kerr…

We examine optical V-band light curves in luminous eclipsing black hole X-ray binaries, using a supercritical accretion/outflow model that is more realistic than the formerly used ones. In order to compute the theoretical light curve in the…

Numerical simulations of MHD accretion flows in the vicinity of a supermasssive black hole provide important insights to the problem of why and how systems -- such as the Galactic Center -- are underluminous and variable. To access…

We use gravitational microlensing to determine the size of the X-ray and optical emission regions of the quadruple lens system Q 2237+0305. The optical half-light radius, log(R_{1/2,V}/cm)=16.41\pm0.18 (at lambda_{rest}=2018 \AA), is…

Black-hole binary (BHB) systems comprise a stellar-mass black hole and a closely orbiting companion star. Matter is transferred from the companion to the black hole, forming an accretion disk, corona and jet structures. The resulting…

Understanding the persistent emission is crucial for studying type I X-ray bursts, which provide insight into neutron star properties. Although accretion disc coronae appear to be common in many accreting systems, their fundamental…

we propose a jet model for the low/hard state of black-hole X-ray sources which explains a) the X-ray spectra, b) the timelag spectra, c) the increase in the amplitude (QPO and high frequency) with increasing photon energy, and d) the…

Context. The gravitational lens system SDSS J1004+4112 was the first known example of a quasar lensed by a galaxy cluster. The interest in this system has been renewed following the publication of r-band light curves spanning 14.5 years and…

The most popular models for the complex phase and time lags in the rapid aperiodic variability of Galactic X-ray binaries are based Comptonization of soft seed photons in a hot corona, where small-scale flares are induced by flares of the…

We investigate a corona coupled with underlying disk through magnetic field and radiation field, and present emergent spectra calculated from Monte Carlo simulations. The spectra are determined for given black-hole mass and accretion rate.…

The analysis of hard X-ray INTEGRAL observations (2003-2008) of superaccreting galactic microquasar SS433 at precessional phases of the source with the maximum disk opening angle is carried out. It is found that the shape and width of the…