ERC Consolidator Grant · 2024
X-ray Measurements of Accreting black holes with Polarimetric-Spectral-timing techniques
Black hole (BH) X-ray binaries (XRBs) radiate a huge X-ray flux from the BH vicinity. The X-ray signal, radiated by a hot corona and a cooler disk, contains information on the BH mass and spin, and the strong gravitational field close to its horizon. However, the X-ray emitting region is unresolvable, necessitating indirect mapping techniques. I pioneered forward-modelling spectral-timing techniques that exploit rapid spectral variability, and played a key role in the first studies of X-ray polarization. X-MAPS will take the novel and transformational step of combining these two powerful diagnostics into polarimetric-spectral-timing. This requires a huge increase in the computational…
From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.