Black Hole (g)Astronomy: exploring the different flavors of accretion

The greatest challenge in black hole astrophysics lies in the attempt to unify Galactic, intermediate and supermassive black holes under the same physical scheme to gain a more profound understanding of different classes of objects. In such grand-unification models, the observed behaviours and manifestations of accreting black holes are driven by only a few fundamental parameters, such as mass, accretion rate and spin. The conference tackles the issues related to accretion physics, production of jets/winds/outflows and their time evolution by putting a particular emphasis on the role of the net accretion rate onto black holes of all sizes. We are going to explore to which extent grand-unification schemes of black hole accretion are possible and also where they possibly fail. Participants are encouraged to present theoretical and/or observational results and prospects, across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, and to discuss them in the light of grand-unification paradigms of black hole accretion.

Topics suggested for the conference :

• Accretion / ejection flows around black holes: theory and observational predictions
• Disks, winds and jets at different accretion rates: observations and phenomenology
• XRBs and AGN grand-unification and scaling relations – what do they mean and where do they fail?
• Ultraluminous X-ray sources and intermediate mass black holes – the missing link?
• Time scales and variability in different accretion states
• Spin evolution and black hole mergers
• Feeding and feedback across the mass scale

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Spectral/timing properties of accreting objects: from X-ray binaries to AGN

“Spectral/timing properties of accreting objects: from X-ray binaries to AGN” is a 3-day workshop to be held at the European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) in April 2013. The aim of the workshop is to review the current understanding of the physics of accretion onto compact objects across the full range of masses, by bringing together young and active experts of the field. In order to encourage discussions and maximize collaborations, the attendance to the workshop will be limited to about 70 people, that will be selected on the basis of the proposed contribution after the registration deadline. There will be no registration fee.

The main scientific topics covered will be:

– Accretion modes at different scales;

– States and state transitions;

– Inflow/outflow connections;

– Accretion/ejection mechanisms;

– Unification schemes.