Title: Black Hole X-ray Binary variability

Speaker: Dr. Tomaso Belloni (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera Italy)

Location: Middle conference room

Time: on Friday, Sep 23rd, at 2 PM

Abstract:  The high-energy emission from black-hole binaries is very variable on time scales from months down to fractions of a second. Among all time scales which are sampled, one of the main goals is to distinguish between those related to the accretion flow and the fundamental signatures of space time in the vicinity of a compact object. After more than a decade of high-quality data from the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, the phenomenology is now reasonably well known, but poorly understood.  I will review the current observational standpoint. This ranges from the long-term evolution of black-hole transients down to high-frequency (hundreds of Hz) features in the power density spectra. I will discuss the comparison with features observed from neutron-star binaries.