Presentation #102.11 in the session AGN Posters.
The reflection and reverberation of X-rays off the inner regions of the accretion disks around supermassive black holes gives us a unique view of the extreme environment just outside the event horizon. Now, new spectral timing techniques based on wavelet analysis are transforming the static picture we previously had of the inner accretion disk and corona into a movie. These new techniques are able to not only measure the light travel time as variations in the X-ray emission from the corona echo off the inner disk, but are able to track the variation of this signal in real time, showing how the corona and the accretion flow evolve over the course of our observations. An important mystery in black hole and accretion physics is the mechanism by which the corona is powered by the accretion flow, and how the corona and inner accretion disk are connected to the launching of relativistic jets, winds and ultrafast outflows. Wavelet analysis of the time-varying reverberation signal in nearby AGN, including IRAS 13224-3809, MCG-6-30-15, I Zwicky 1 and MS 22549-3712, shows how the size of the corona correlates with the observed X-ray luminosity, and how the rapid variability we observe in the X-ray emission begins in the accretion disk, then propagates inwards until it reaches the innermost parts of the disk that are able to modulate the structure of the corona, leading to a measurable time delay between the change in luminosity and the corresponding change in the corona. We are able to observe how the corona and reverberation from the inner accretion disk are connected to the launching of ultra-fast outflows, and we are able to observe the variations that accompany quasi-periodic oscillations (QPOs) to learn how these mysterious patterns of variability arise.