This thesis brings together the various techniques of X-ray spectral analysis in order to examine the properties of black holes that vary in mass by several orders of magnitude. In all these systems it is widely accepted that the X-ray emission is produced by Compton up-scattering of lower energy seed photons in a hot corona or accretion flow, and here these processes are examined through a study of the X-ray spectral variability of each source. A new technique is introduced, in which models are fitted to over 2 million X-ray spectra on time-scales as short as 16 ms, and subsequently it is shown that the nature of the correlation between intensity and spectral index is strongly dependent upon the spectral state of the black hole. Finally, the results of an extensive survey of nearby galactic nuclei using the Chandra X-ray telescope are presented in the form of images and spectra, and these results are used along with data from the literature to search for Compton-thick nuclei.
Reihe
Thesis
Auflage
Sprache
Verlagsort
Verlagsgruppe
Springer International Publishing
Zielgruppe
Für höhere Schule und Studium
Für Beruf und Forschung
Research
Illustrationen
15
64 farbige Abbildungen, 15 s/w Abbildungen
XXXIII, 150 p. 79 illus., 64 illus. in color.
Maße
Höhe: 241 mm
Breite: 160 mm
Dicke: 16 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-3-319-09586-8 (9783319095868)
DOI
10.1007/978-3-319-09587-5
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Dr. Chris J. Skipper got his MSc from University of Southampton with First Class Honors and was awarded his PhD from Southampton in 2013, where he is now working as a SKA Research Fellow.
Declaration of Authorship.- Acknowledgements.- Introduction.- AGN: Absorption, spectral classification and the optical emission lines.- Very Fast X-ray Spectral Variability in Cygnus X-1.- The m E┌ relationship in XRBs and AGN.- Conclusions.- Spectra of Compton-thick AGN.- Spectra of Compton-thin AGN.- References.
