Prague Relativistic Astrophysics

Frederic Marin

Summary of two years of research at the Astronomical Institute

This presentation will review the work accomplished during my post-doctorate position at the Institute of Spořilov. During two years, I focused on the unconstrained geometry of the emitting, reprocessing and absorbing regions around supermassive black holes (SMBH), from quiescent Galatic objects to radio-quiet and radio-loud quasars. If we aim to understand the history and the evolution of the most energetic systems of our Universe, it is indeed of a prime necessity to fix the unified model of active galactic nuclei (AGN) by identifying both its correct and dubious parts, replacing the later by up-to-date theories. To resolve the unresolvable, past polarimetric observations were compiled and analyzed to narrow down the intrinsic properties of quasars, while advanced Monte Carlo radiative transfer computations were achieved to reproduce the observed AGN polarization signatures. Pushing the simulations further, X-ray polarimetric predictions for both active and non-active SMBH were made in order to lay the ground for the new generation of X-ray polarimeters submitted to the ESA (XIPE) and NASA (IXPE). The final part of the presentation will be dedicated to the accretion of French delicacies and wines.