Fast Spectral Variability in the X-ray Emission of Accreting Black Holes

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.

Nominated as an outstanding thesis by the University of Southampton Provides a comprehensive overview of spectral variability in black holes Introduces a new technique for examining short time-scale spectral variability in X-ray binaries Contains a catalog of Chandra images and spectra of nearby galactic nuclei Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Autorentext
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.

Inhalt
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.