Relativistic Astrophysics in Active Galactic Nuclei
Abstract
X-ray spectroscopy and timing with XMM-Newton have given us an unprecedented view of general relativistic physics in the immediate vicinity of accreting supermassive black holes. In addition to firmly establishing the existence of black holes and allowing us to constrain their spin, we are now detecting reverberation effects from the innermost disk that will ultimately allow us to map the location of the enigmatic X-ray source. In this review talk, I shall begin by describing current status of black hole spin measurements and the tantalizing evidence for a mass dependence to the spin distribution. Building on from the previous talk, I shall then describe the general relativistic modeling of the detected reverberation delays as a means to map out the geometry of both the X-ray source and the inner accretion disk. I shall conclude by discussing the promise of ATHENA for these studies.
- Publication:
-
The X-ray Universe 2014
- Pub Date:
- July 2014
- Bibcode:
- 2014xru..confE..22R