相关论文: Resolving the inner accretion flow towards the cen…
We estimate the accretion rates onto the supermassive black holes that power 20 of the highest-redshift quasars, at z>5.8, including the quasar with the highest redshift known to date -- ULAS J1120 at z=7.09. The analysis is based on the…
In the microquasar V4641 Sgr the spin of the black hole is thought to be misaligned with the binary orbital axis. The accretion disc aligns with the black hole spin by the Lense-Thirring effect near to the black hole and further out becomes…
Phase-resolved spectroscopy of four AM CVn systems obtained with the William Herschel Telescope and the Gran Telescopio de Canarias (GTC) is presented. SDSS\,J120841.96+355025.2 was found to have an orbital period of 52.96$\pm$0.40\,min and…
We study three high magnification microlensing events, generally recognized as probable caustic crossings, in the optical light curves of the multiply imaged quasar Q 2237+0305. We model the light curve of each event as the convolution of a…
Supermassive black holes in giant elliptical galaxies are remarkably faint given their expected accretion rates. This motivates models of radiatively inefficient accretion, due to either ion-electron thermal decoupling, generation of…
The gravitationally lensed quasar HE 1104-1805 has been observed at a variety of wavelengths ranging from the mid-infrared to X-ray for nearly 20 years. We combine flux ratios from the literature, including recent Chandra data, with new…
We develop an accretion disc (AD) fitting method, utilising thin and slim disc models and Bayesian inference with the Markov-Chain Monte-Carlo approach, testing it on the most luminous known quasar, SMSS J215728.21-360215.1, at redshift…
We develop a broadband spectral model, agnsli}, to describe super-Eddington black hole accretion disc spectra. This is based on the slim disc emissivity, where radial advection keeps the surface luminosity at the local Eddington limit,…
Disc accretion on to a black hole is often misaligned from its spin axis. If the disc maintains a significant magnetic field normal to its local plane, we show that dipole radiation from Lense-Thirring precessing disc annuli can extract a…
From the peak of a gravitational microlensing high-magnification event in the A component of QSO 2237+0305, which was accurately monitored by the GLITP collaboration, we derived new information on the nature and size of the optical V-band…
Local low metallicity galaxies with signatures of possible accretion activity are ideal laboratories in which to search for the lowest mass black holes and study their impact on the host galaxy. Here we present the first JWST NIRSpec IFS…
We present results on a multi-wavelength analysis of SDSS J025214.67-002813.7, a system which has been previously classified as a binary AGN candidate based on periodic signals detected in the optical light curves. We use available…
We report the discovery of extreme X-ray variability in a type 1 quasar: SDSS J$075101.42+291419.1$. It has a black hole mass of $1.6\times 10^7~\rm M_\odot$ measured from reverberation mapping (RM), and the black hole is accreting with a…
We continue our study of the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of 11 AGN at 1.5 < z < 2.2, with optical-NIR spectra, X-ray data and mid-IR photometry. In a previous paper we presented the observations and models; in this paper we explore…
Gas undergoing Bondi accretion onto a supermassive black hole (SMBH) becomes hotter toward smaller radii. We searched for this signature with a Chandra observation of the hot gas in NGC 3115, which optical observations show has a very…
It is commonly believed that accretion discs are truncated and their inner regions are described by advection dominated accretion flows (ADAFs) in the hard spectral state of black hole X-ray binaries. However, the increasing occurrence of a…
We use the microlensing variability observed for eleven gravitationally lensed quasars to show that the accretion disk size at a rest-frame wavelength of 2500 Angstroms is related to the black hole mass by log(R_{2500}/cm)=(15.78\pm0.12) +…
We present HST, RXTE, and UKIRT observations of the broad band spectra of the black hole X-ray transient XTE J1859+226 during the decline from its 1999-2000 outburst. Our UV spectra define the 2175A interstellar absorption feature very well…
We present near-infrared spectra of ten luminous, intermediate redshift quasars observed with SofI at the NTT of ESO/La Silla. With these rest-frame optical spectra we probe the Hb -[OIII] emission line region. Using the standard scaling…
Measurements of the physical properties of accretion disks in active galactic nuclei are important for better understanding the growth and evolution of supermassive black holes. We present the accretion disk sizes of 22 quasars from…