Publications (45)
Proof of principle X-ray reflection mass measurement of the black hole in H1743-322
Edward Nathan, Adam Ingram, James F. Steiner +9
The black hole X-ray binary H1743-322 lies in a region of the Galaxy with high extinction, and therefore it has not been possible to make a dynamical mass measurement. In this pape…
Highly-coherent quasi-periodic oscillations in the 'heartbeat' black hole X-ray binary IGR J17091-3624
Jingyi Wang, Erin Kara, Jeroen Homan +13
IGR J17091-3624 is a black hole X-ray binary (BHXB), often referred to as the 'twin' of GRS 1915+105 because it is the only other known BHXB that can show exotic 'heartbeat'-like v…
Reconstruction of ultrafast exciton dynamics with a phase-retrieval algorithm
Bruno Moio, Gian Luca Dolso, Giacomo Inzani +5
The first step to gain optical control over the ultrafast processes initiated by light in solids is a correct identification of the physical mechanisms at play. Among them, exciton…
Disk, Corona, Jet Connection in the Intermediate State of MAXI J1820+070 Revealed by NICER Spectral-Timing Analysis
Jingyi Wang, Guglielmo Mastroserio, Erin Kara +14
We analyze 5 epochs of NICER data of the black hole X-ray binary MAXI J1820+070 during the bright hard-to-soft state transition in its 2018 outburst with both reflection spectrosco…
Modelling correlated variability in accreting black holes: the effect of high density and variable ionisation on reverberation lags
Guglielmo Mastroserio, Adam Ingram, Jingyi Wang +9
We present a new release of the RELTRANS model to fit the complex cross-spectrum of accreting black holes as a function of energy. The model accounts for continuum lags and reverbe…
AT2024lhc and AT2024kmq in the landscape of featureless tidal disruption events
Yuhan Yao, Ryan Chornock, Andrew Mummery +39
We study AT2024kmq and AT2024lhc, two tidal disruption events (TDEs) with blue featureless spectra associated with high-mass black holes (). Both even…
X-ray reverberation black hole mass and distance estimates of Cygnus X-1
Patrick O'Neill, Adam Ingram, Edward Nathan +4
We fit X-ray reverberation models to Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer data from the X-ray binary Cygnus X-1 in its hard state to yield estimates for the black hole mass and the distance…
Spectrally tunable ultrashort monochromatized extreme ultraviolet pulses at 100 kHz
Tamás Csizmadia, Zoltán Filus, TÃmea Grósz +15
We present the experimental realization of spectrally tunable, ultrashort, quasi-monochromatic extreme ultraviolet (XUV) pulses generated at 100 kHz repetition rate in a user-orien…
Evidence for an expanding corona based on spectral-timing modelling of multiple black hole X-ray binaries
Zheng Cao, Matteo Lucchini, Sera Markoff +2
Galactic black hole X-ray binaries (BHXBs) provide excellent laboratories to study accretion, as their relatively quick evolution allows us to monitor large changes in the in-flowi…
Novel beamline for attosecond transient reflection spectroscopy in a sequential two-foci geometry
Giacinto D. Lucarelli, Bruno Moio, Giacomo Inzani +6
We present an innovative beamline for extreme ultraviolet (XUV)-infrared (IR) pump-probe reflection spectroscopy in solids with attosecond temporal resolution. The setup uses an ac…
Controlling Floquet states on ultrashort time scales
Matteo Lucchini, Fabio Medeghini, Yingxuan Wu +10
The advent of ultrafast laser science offers the unique opportunity to combine Floquet engineering with extreme time resolution, further pushing the optical control of matter into…
Correlated mid-infrared and X-ray outbursts in black hole X-ray binaries: A new route to discovery in infrared surveys
Chris John, Kishalay De, Matteo Lucchini +5
The mid-infrared (MIR; m) bands offer a unique window into understanding accretion and its interplay with jet formation in Galactic black hole X-ray binaries (BHX…
The unique case of the AGN core of M87: a misaligned low power blazar?
Matteo Lucchini, Felicia Krauss, Sera Markoff
M87 hosts one of the closest jetted active galactic nucleus (AGN) to Earth. Thanks to its vicinity and to the large mass of is central black hole, M87 is the only source in which t…
Time delay anisotropy in photoelectron emission from the isotropic ground state of helium
Sebastian Heuser, Ãlvaro Jiménez Galán, Claudio Cirelli +11
Time delays of electrons emitted from an isotropic initial state and leaving behind an isotropic ion are assumed to be angle-independent. Using an interferometric method involving…
nDspec: a new Python library for modelling multi-dimensional datasets in X-ray astronomy
Matteo Lucchini, Benjamin Ricketts, Phil Uttley +1
The current fleet of X-ray telescopes produces a wealth of multi-dimensional data, allowing us to study sources in time, photon energy, and polarisation. At the same time, it has b…
Energy-resolved pulse profiles of Vela X-1: cross-calibrating XMM-Newton and NuSTAR to trace spectral features
Dimitrios K. Maniadakis, Antonino D'Aì, Camille M. Diez +12
Pulse profiles probe the emission geometry of accreting X-ray pulsars, but their observed shapes may depend on instrumental response and observational setup. The pulsed fraction sp…
Pulse profile modelling of the 2024 outburst of the accreting millisecond pulsar SRGA J144459.2-604207
Bas Dorsman, Tuomo Salmi, Anna L. Watts +14
Pulse profile modelling via relativistic ray-tracing can constrain the system parameters of neutron stars, notably their mass and radius. Among these objects, accreting millisecond…
Unravelling the intertwined atomic and bulk nature of localised excitons by attosecond spectroscopy
Matteo Lucchini, Shunsuke A. Sato, Giacinto D. Lucarelli +9
The electro-optical properties of most semiconductors and insulators of technological interest are dominated by the presence of electron-hole quasiparticles called excitons. The ma…
Multiwavelength View of the M87 Black Hole Captured by the Event Horizon Telescope
Giacomo Principe, Matteo Lucchini
In 2017, the first image of the center of the M87 galaxy was captured by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). It revealed a ring morphology and a size consistent with theoretical exp…
Chasing the break: Tracing the full evolution of a black hole X-ray binary jet with multi-wavelength spectral modeling
Constanza Echiburú-Trujillo, Alexandra J. Tetarenko, Daryl Haggard +35
Black hole X-ray binaries (BH XRBs) are ideal targets to study the connection between accretion inflow and jet outflow. Here we present quasi-simultaneous, multi-wavelength observa…
Characterizing the Broadband Reflection Spectrum of MAXI J1803-298 During its 2021 Outburst with NuSTAR and NICER
Oluwashina Adegoke, Javier Garcia, Riley Connors +12
MAXI J1803-298 is a transient black hole candidate discovered in May of 2021 during an outburst that lasted several months. Multiple X-ray observations reveal recurring "dipping" i…
Time-frequency mapping of two-colour photoemission driven by harmonic radiation
Bruno Moio, Gian Luca Dolso, Giacomo Inzani +4
The use of few-femtosecond, extreme ultraviolet (XUV) pulses, produced by high-order harmonic generation, in combination with few-femtosecond infrared (IR) pulses in pump-probe exp…
Combining timing characteristics with physical broadband spectral modelling of black hole X-ray binary GX~3394
Riley M. T. Connors, David van Eijnatten, Sera Markoff +6
GX~3394 is a black hole X-ray binary that is a key focus of accretion studies since it goes into outburst roughly every two-to-three years. Tracking of its radio, IR and X-ray f…
Two-colour coherent control of nuclear and electron dynamics in photoionization of molecular hydrogen with FEL pulses
Fabian Holzmeier, Alberto Gonzalez-Castrillo, Thomas M. Baumann +12
The extension of coherent - control schemes, recently implemented in free-electron lasers (FELs), to molecular systems offers new opportunities to control chemical dynamic…
The Birth of a Relativistic Jet Following the Disruption of a Star by a Cosmological Black Hole
Dheeraj R. Pasham, Matteo Lucchini, Tanmoy Laskar +63
A black hole can launch a powerful relativistic jet after it tidally disrupts a star. If this jet fortuitously aligns with our line of sight, the overall brightness is Doppler boos…
Revisiting the EC/CMB model for extragalactic large scale jets
Matteo Lucchini, Fabrizio Tavecchio, Gabriele Ghisellini
One of the most outstanding results of the Chandra X-ray Observatory was the discovery that AGN jets are bright X-ray emitters on very large scales, up to hundreds of kpc. Of these…
Variability as a predictor for the hard-to-soft state transition in GX 339-4
Matteo Lucchini, Marina Ten Have, Jingyi Wang +17
During the outbursts of black hole X-ray binaries (BHXRBs), their accretion flows transition through several states. The source luminosity rises in the hard state, dominated by non…
Field-driven attosecond photoinjection dynamics in semiconductors
Giacomo Inzani, Lyudmyla Adamska, Amir Eskandari-asl +12
The route towards manipulation of the optoelectronic properties of matter beyond the current limits of electronics starts from a comprehensive study of the ultrafast dynamics trigg…
The NICER "Reverberation Machine": A Systematic Study of Time Lags in Black Hole X-Ray Binaries
Jingyi Wang, Erin Kara, Matteo Lucchini +12
We perform the first systematic search of all NICER archival observations of black hole (and candidate) low-mass X-ray binaries for signatures of reverberation. Reverberation lags…
The 2022 Outburst of IGR J17091-3624: Connecting the exotic GRS 1915+105 to standard black hole X-ray binaries
Jingyi Wang, Erin Kara, Javier A. GarcÃa +13
While the standard X-ray variability of black hole X-ray binaries (BHXBs) is stochastic and noisy, there are two known BHXBs that exhibit exotic `heartbeat'-like variability in the…
Role of intra-band transitions in photo-carrier generation
Shunsuke A. Sato, Matteo Lucchini, Mikhail Volkov +4
We theoretically investigate the role of intra-band transitions in laser-induced carrier-generation for different photon energy regimes: (i) strongly off-resonant, (ii) multi-photo…
Robust isolated attosecond pulse generation with self-compressed sub-cycle drivers from hollow capillary fibers
Marina Fernández Galán, Javier Serrano, Enrique Conejero Jarque +8
High-order harmonic generation (HHG) arising from the non-perturbative interaction of intense light fields with matter constitutes a well-established tabletop source of coherent ex…
RTFAST-Spectra: Emulation of X-ray reverberation mapping for active galactic nuclei
Benjamin Ricketts, Daniela Huppenkothen, Matteo Lucchini +4
Bayesian analysis has begun to be more widely adopted in X-ray spectroscopy, but it has largely been constrained to relatively simple physical models due to limitations in X-ray mo…
The peculiar variable X-ray spectrum of the active galactic nucleus PKS 2005-489
Owen Chase, Felicia McBride, Andrea Gokus +4
PKS 2005-489 is a well-known, bright southern BL Lac object that has been detected up to TeV energies. In a low-flux state it exhibits the expected multiwavelength double-peaked sp…
Systematic assessment of disk truncation in the black hole X-ray binary Swift J1727.8-1613 using NICER
Ole König, James F. Steiner, Niek Bollemeijer +20
The 2023/24 NICER monitoring campaign of the 7 Crab bright black hole X-ray binary Swift J1727.8-1613 covered the outburst in almost all accretion states. High-quality data are ava…
Roadmap on Attosecond Science
Rocio Borrego Varillas, Pierre Agostini, Fernando Ardana-Lamas +108
Twenty-five years have passed since the first experimental demonstration of attosecond pulses, marking the advent of our ability to resolve and control electron motion in real time…
Exploring the role of composition and mass-loading on the properties of hadronic jets
Dimitrios Kantzas, Sera Markoff, Matteo Lucchini +2
Astrophysical jets are relativistic outflows that remain collimated for remarkably many orders of magnitude. Despite decades of research, the origin of cosmic rays (CRs) remains un…
Emulation of non-linear 1D spectral models: relativistic X-ray reflection
Benjamin J. Ricketts, Tin Hadži VeljkoviÄ, Daniela Huppenkothen +4
The use of machine learning techniques to approximate computationally expensive models has become increasingly prevalent in a wide variety of fields within astronomy. We discuss th…
On measuring the Hubble constant with X-ray reverberation mapping of active galactic nuclei
Adam Ingram, Guglielmo Mastroserio, Michiel van der Klis +8
We show that X-ray reverberation mapping can be used to measure the distance to type 1 active galactic nuclei (AGNs). This is because X-ray photons originally emitted from the `cor…
Multiphoton transitions for delay-zero calibration in attosecond spectroscopy
Jens Herrmann, Matteo Lucchini, Shaohao Chen +7
The exact delay-zero calibration in an attosecond pump-probe experiment is important for the correct interpretation of experimental data. In attosecond transient absorption spectro…
Long term variability of Cygnus X-1. VIII. A spectral-timing look at low energies with NICER
Ole König, Guglielmo Mastroserio, Thomas Dauser +19
The Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) monitoring campaign of Cyg X-1 allows us to study its spectral-timing behavior at energies keV across all states. The…
Role of Resonant -Points in the Transient Optical Response of Pumped Germanium
Amir Eskandari-asl, Giacomo Inzani, Matteo Lucchini +1
Pump-induced transient optical properties combine contributions from electronic states throughout the Brillouin zone, but the relative relevance of off-resonant and l-photon resona…
Unusual Hard X-ray Flares Caught in NICER Monitoring of the Binary Supermassive Black Hole Candidate AT2019cuk/Tick Tock/SDSS J1430+2303
Megan Masterson, Erin Kara, Dheeraj R. Pasham +17
The nuclear transient AT2019cuk/Tick Tock/SDSS J1430+2303 has been suggested to harbor a supermassive black hole (SMBH) binary near coalescence. We report results from high-cadence…
X-ray Reverberation Mapping of Ark 564 using Gaussian Process Regression
Collin D. Lewin, Erin Kara, Daniel R. Wilkins +15
Ark 564 is an extreme high-Eddington Narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy, known for being one of the brightest, most rapidly variable soft X-ray AGN, and for having one of the lowest temp…
Investigating the impact of vertically extended coronae on X-ray reverberation mapping
Matteo Lucchini, Guglielmo Mastroserio, Jingyi Wang +9
Accreting black holes commonly exhibit hard X-ray emission, originating from a region of hot plasma near the central engine referred to as the corona. The origin and geometry of th…