Astrophysics and Cosmology Seminar
Isolating the Intrinsic Emission of an Accretion Disk Around a Supermassive Black Hole
Dr. Catalina Sobrino
University of Haifa
Abstract
Accretion disks around supermassive black holes remain only partially understood. In this talk, I will discuss current discrepancies between theoretical models and observations of accretion disks, and present a new method for isolating the intrinsic emission of accretion disks in active galactic nuclei (AGN) through the analysis of their variability. This method helps address several of the existing discrepancies between theory and observations.
We apply this technique to the nearby radio-quiet galaxy Mrk 279, combining space-based observations from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) with ground-based data from the Wise Observatory. Our results show that the observed emission can be well described by standard accretion-disk models once additional sources of contamination are properly identified and subtracted. This approach can be extended to many other systems and will be particularly valuable in the era of large time-domain surveys, such as those conducted by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.
We apply this technique to the nearby radio-quiet galaxy Mrk 279, combining space-based observations from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) with ground-based data from the Wise Observatory. Our results show that the observed emission can be well described by standard accretion-disk models once additional sources of contamination are properly identified and subtracted. This approach can be extended to many other systems and will be particularly valuable in the era of large time-domain surveys, such as those conducted by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.