Related papers: Spin-Induced Disk Precession in Sagittarius A*
The emission region and black hole shadow of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center, can be probed with millimeter Very Long Baseline Interferometry. Our goal is to probe the geometry of the emitting plasma…
We perform general relativistic simulations of self-gravitating black hole-disks in which the spin of the black hole is significantly tilted ($45^\circ$ and $90^\circ$) with respect to the angular momentum of the disk and the disk-to-black…
Recently, Cui et al. [Nature \textbf{621}, 711 (2023)] reported that the jet nozzle of M87* exhibits a precession with a period of approximately 11 years. This finding strongly suggests that the supermassive black hole in the core of M87…
We show that observations by Backer and collaborators over the past two decades constrain the time derivative of the proper motion of Sgr A* to be less than 0.14 mas yr^{-2}. Using this result and a preliminary measurement by Eckart and…
This paper presents our latest numerical simulations of accretion disks that are misaligned with respect to the rotation axis of a Kerr black hole. In this work we use a new, fully conservative version of the Cosmos++ general relativistic…
If astrophysical black hole candidates are the Kerr black holes predicted by General Relativity, the value of their spin parameter must be subject to the theoretical bound $|a_*| \le 1$. In this work, we consider the possibility that these…
We present a simple argument that the missing x-ray flux from the Galactic Center source Sgr~A* ist not evidence {\it against} -- as claimed by Goldwurm et al. 1994 -- but rather indirect evidence {\it for} the presence of a supermassive…
Sub milli-arcsecond astrometry and imaging of the black hole Sgr A* at the Galactic centre may become possible in the near future at infrared and sub-millimetre wavelengths. Motivated by observations of short-term infrared and X-ray…
A cold neutral and extremely dim accretion disk may be present as a remnant of a past vigorous activity around the black hole in our Galactic Center (GC). Here we discuss ways to detect such a disk through its interaction with numerous…
The inner parts of an accretion disk around a spinning black hole are forced to align with the spin of the hole by the Bardeen-Petterson effect. Assuming that any jet produced by such a system is aligned with the angular momentum of either…
We present spectroscopic observations of the quiescent black hole binary A0620-00 with the the 6.5-m Magellan Clay telescope at Las Campanas Observatory. We measure absorption-line radial velocities of the secondary and make the most…
Orientation of parsec-scale accretion disks in AGN is likely to be nearly random for different black hole feeding episodes. Since AGN accretion disks are unstable to self-gravity on parsec scales, star formation in these disks will create…
We study the hydrodynamical evolution of massive accretion disks around black holes, formed when a neutron star is disrupted by a black hole in a binary system. Initial conditions are taken from 3D calculations of coalescing binaries.…
The ring-like images of the two supermassive black holes captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) provide powerful probes of the physics of accretion flows at horizon scales. Specifically, the brightness asymmetry in the images carries…
VLBA high spatial resolution observations of the disk structure of the active galactic nucleus NGC 1068 has recently revealed that the kinematics and geometry of this AGN is well characterized by an outer disk of H2O maser emission having a…
We present 3D general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulations of the accretion flow surrounding Sagittarius A* that are initialized using larger-scale MHD simulations of the $\sim$ 30 Wolf--Rayet (WR) stellar winds in the…
The radio source Sgr A* in the Galactic center emits a polarized spectrum at millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelengths that is strongly suggestive of relativistic disk accretion onto a massive black hole. We use the well-constrained mass of…
Measurements of stellar orbits provide compelling evidence that the compact radio source Sagittarius A* at the Galactic Centre is a black hole four million times the mass of the Sun. With the exception of modest X-ray and infrared flares,…
We study the precession of accretion disks in the context of gamma-ray burst inner engines. Our aim is to quantitatively estimate the characteristics of gravitational waves produced by the precession of the transient accretion disk in…
Observations of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) in near-infrared (NIR) show irregular flaring activity. Flares coincide with astrometric rotation of brightness centroid and with looping patterns in fractional linear polarization. These signatures…