Presentation #117.23 in the session Time-Domain Astrophysics.
This talk has been accepted for the special session: Advances in Black Hole Spectral Timing On All Scales with NICER
Observations with the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer have led to extraordinary progress in the knowledge of the X-ray variability properties of many different type of sources, and particularly of black hole (BHs) and neutron stars (NSs) that are found in low-mass X-ray binaries. Many of the quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) observed in these type of systems are thought to originate in the innermost regions of the accretion disk, and therefore understanding the physical processes that produce these QPOs is essential to understand accretion physics. In June 2017 NASA installed the “Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER)” aboard the ISS. NICER provides observations of BHs and NSs with an unprecedented combination of high-time and high-spectral resolution in the 0.5-12 keV range, allowing us to probe accretion physics as it was not possible before. In this talk I will review recent results based on NICER data that highlights the importance of NICER, and how it is changing the way we understand accretion physics.