Probing Active Galactic Nuclei through X-ray Eyes
Dr. Shruti Tripathi
Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) Pune, India

Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) exhibit rapid variability in X-rays implying that the X-rays originate from a small region close to the central supermassive black hole. It is therefore crucial to understand the character of X-ray variability of an AGN in order to extract valuable information on the physical system and also to understand the physical processes responsible for their variable nature. A comprehensive study incorporating timing and spectral analysis can shed light on the dynamics of matter near the black hole and prove to be a laboratory to test the predictions of the General Theory of Relativity. This implies the need of observations which provide data to test and constrain the physical models. There are several space missions, e.g., XMM-Newton, Suzaku, Chandra which are dedicated to X-ray observations and have yielded sensitive constraints on physical conditions in the emitting plasmas. In this talk I will attempt to probe the variable behaviour of AGN with the help of results derived from the analysis of X-ray satellite data.

Date:	Thursday, 2 April 2015
Time:	14:30
Where:	All
	Bishops's University - Johnson 120
Contact:	Lorne Nelson