BLACK HOLE ASTROPHYSICS CAN BE REGARDED AS A FUNDAMENTAL TOOL IN STUDYING THE ACCRETION AND EJECTION PHYSICS IN THE STRONGEST GRAVITY REGIME IN THE UNIVERSE. REFLECTION SPECTROSCOPY STUDIES THE TIME-AVERAGED FLUX-ENERGY SPECTRUM PROVIDING CONSTRAINTS ON PROPERTIES IN THE ACCRETION DISK AND THE CORONA BUT DEGENERACIES TAKE PLACE IN PROBLEMS SUCH AS THE TRUNCATION LEVEL OF THE DISK. REVERBERATION MAPPING IS A TIMING TECHNIQUE REVEALING THE DISK-CORONA GEOMETRY IN THE INNERMOST REGIONS WHICH COULD HELP BREAK DEGENERACIES. WITH RECENT CUTTING-EDGE DEVELOPMENTS IN PHYSICAL SPECTRAL-TIMING MODELS THE MAIN GOAL IN THIS PROPOSAL IS TO FIND CLUES ON THE STATE TRANSITION MECHANISM AND THE COUPLING BETWEEN THE DISK CORONA AND JET IN BLACK HOLE BINARIES.

Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, Cambridge MA

Investigators