It is well known that the electrically charged Reissner-Nordstr\"{o}m black hole could be overcharged. Here, we investigate the process of overcharging of a magnetized Reissner-Nordstr\"{o}m black hole that includes effect of the magnetic field generated by own magnetic charge of source on the background geometry. It is found that magnetic field prevents a transition to occur from black hole to naked singularity, thus overcharging cannot be attained which happens due to the fact that the magnetic field reaches its threshold value. It turns out that beyond threshold value the magnetic field can exert large Lorentz force on particles and dominate over the gravitational force, allowing charged particles not to fall into the black hole. One may conclude, there occurs no evidence for violation of cosmic censorship conjecture for a magnetized Reissner-Nordstr\"{o}m black hole beyond threshold value of the magnetic field.

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 NICER X-ray monitoring with multiple visits per day from January-August 2022, as well as continued optical monitoring during the same time period. We find no evidence of periodic/quasi-periodic modulation in the X-ray, UV, or optical bands, however we do observe exotic hard X-ray variability that is unusual for a typical AGN. The most striking feature of the NICER light curve is repetitive hard (2-4 keV) X-ray flares that result in distinctly harder X-ray spectra compared to the non-flaring data. In its non-flaring state, AT2019cuk looks like a relatively standard AGN, but it presents the first case of day-long, hard X-ray flares in a changing-look AGN. We consider a few different models for the driving mechanism of these hard X-ray flares, including: (1) corona/jet variability driven by increased magnetic activity, (2) variable obscuration, and (3) self-lensing from the potential secondary SMBH. We prefer the variable corona model, as the obscuration model requires rather contrived timescales and the self-lensing model is difficult to reconcile with a lack of clear periodicity in the flares. These findings illustrate how important high-cadence X-ray monitoring is to our understanding of the rapid variability of the X-ray corona and necessitate further high-cadence, multi-wavelength monitoring of changing-look AGN like AT2019cuk to probe the corona-jet connection.

We present optical and near-infrared (NIR) photometry for three gamma-ray burst supernovae (GRB-SNe): GRB 120729A, GRB 130215A / SN 2013ez and GRB 130831A / SN 2013fu. In the case of GRB 130215A / SN 2013ez, we also present optical spectroscopy at t-t0=16.1 d, which covers rest-frame 3000-6250 Angstroms. Based on Fe II (5169) and Si (II) (6355), our spectrum indicates an unusually low expansion velocity of 4000-6350 km/s, the lowest ever measured for a GRB-SN. Additionally, we determined the brightness and shape of each accompanying SN relative to a template supernova (SN 1998bw), which were used to estimate the amount of nickel produced via nucleosynthesis during each explosion. We find that our derived nickel masses are typical of other GRB-SNe, and greater than those of SNe Ibc that are not associated with GRBs. For GRB 130831A / SN 2013fu, we use our well-sampled R-band light curve (LC) to estimate the amount of ejecta mass and the kinetic energy of the SN, finding that these too are similar to other GRB-SNe. For GRB 130215A, we take advantage of contemporaneous optical/NIR observations to construct an optical/NIR bolometric LC of the afterglow. We fit the bolometric LC with the millisecond magnetar model of Zhang & Meszaros (2001), which considers dipole radiation as a source of energy injection to the forward shock powering the optical/NIR afterglow. Using this model we derive an initial spin period of P=12 ms and a magnetic field of B=1.1 x 10^15 G, which are commensurate with those found for proposed magnetar central engines of other long-duration GRBs.

PG 1553+113 is one of the few blazars with a convincing quasi-periodic emission in the gamma-ray band. The source is also a very high-energy (VHE; >100 GeV) gamma-ray emitter. To better understand its properties and identify the underlying physical processes driving its variability, the MAGIC Collaboration initiated a multiyear, multiwavelength monitoring campaign in 2015 involving the OVRO 40-m and Medicina radio telescopes, REM, KVA, and the MAGIC telescopes, Swift and Fermi satellites, and the WEBT network. The analysis presented in this paper uses data until 2017 and focuses on the characterization of the variability. The gamma-ray data show a (hint of a) periodic signal compatible with literature, but the X-ray and VHE gamma-ray data do not show statistical evidence for a periodic signal. In other bands, the data are compatible with the gamma-ray period, but with a relatively high p-value. The complex connection between the low and high-energy emission and the non-monochromatic modulation and changes in flux suggests that a simple one-zone model is unable to explain all the variability. Instead, a model including a periodic component along with multiple emission zones is required.

Einstein-Maxwell dilaton-axion gravity is a string-inspired model arising from the low energy effective action of heterotic string theory and an important candidate as alternative to General Relativity. Recently, some authors have explored its astrophysical implications in the spectra of accreting black holes and inferred the constraint r_2 < 0.1, where $r_2 \ge 0$ is the black hole dilaton charge and General Relativity is recovered for $r_2 = 0$. In the present paper, we study the impact of a non-vanishing black hole dilaton charge on the reflection spectrum of the disk. From the analysis of a NuSTAR spectrum of the black hole binary EXO 1846-031, we find the constraint r_2 < 0.011 (90% CL), which is an order of magnitude more stringent.

We present extensive photometric and spectroscopic observations of the peculiar Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) 2022vqz. It shares many similarities with the SN 2002es-like SNe Ia, such as low luminosity ($M_{B,\rm max}=-18.11\pm0.16$ mag) and moderate post-peak decline rate ($\Delta m_{15,B}=1.33\pm0.11$ mag). The nickel mass synthesised in the explosion is estimated as $0.20\pm0.04~{\rm M}_\odot$ from the bolometric light curve, which is obviously lower than that of normal SNe Ia. SN 2022vqz is also characterised by slowly expanding ejecta, with Si II velocities persisting around 7000 km s$^{-1}$ since 16 days before peak brightness, unique among all known SNe Ia. While all of these properties imply a lower-energy thermonuclear explosion that should leave a considerable amount of unburnt materials, the absent signature of unburnt carbon in spectra of SN 2022vqz is puzzling. A prominent early peak is clearly detected in the ATLAS $c$- and $o$-band light curves and in the ZTF $gr$-band data within days after the explosion. Possible mechanisms for the early peak are discussed, including the sub-Chandrasekhar-mass double-detonation model and interaction of SN ejecta with circumstellar material. We find that both models face some difficulties in replicating all aspects of the observed data. As an alternative, we propose a hybrid C-O-Ne white dwarf as the progenitor of SN 2022vqz; it can simultaneously reconcile the tension between low ejecta velocity and the absence of carbon. We further discuss the diversity of SN 2002es-like objects and their origin in the context of different scenarios.

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 NICER X-ray monitoring with multiple visits per day from January-August 2022, as well as continued optical monitoring during the same time period. We find no evidence of periodic/quasi-periodic modulation in the X-ray, UV, or optical bands, however we do observe exotic hard X-ray variability that is unusual for a typical AGN. The most striking feature of the NICER light curve is repetitive hard (2-4 keV) X-ray flares that result in distinctly harder X-ray spectra compared to the non-flaring data. In its non-flaring state, AT2019cuk looks like a relatively standard AGN, but it presents the first case of day-long, hard X-ray flares in a changing-look AGN. We consider a few different models for the driving mechanism of these hard X-ray flares, including: (1) corona/jet variability driven by increased magnetic activity, (2) variable obscuration, and (3) self-lensing from the potential secondary SMBH. We prefer the variable corona model, as the obscuration model requires rather contrived timescales and the self-lensing model is difficult to reconcile with a lack of clear periodicity in the flares. These findings illustrate how important high-cadence X-ray monitoring is to our understanding of the rapid variability of the X-ray corona and necessitate further high-cadence, multi-wavelength monitoring of changing-look AGN like AT2019cuk to probe the corona-jet connection.

GRB 221009A is the brightest Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) detected in more than 50 years of study. In this paper, we present observations in the X-ray and optical domains after the GRB obtained by the GRANDMA Collaboration (which includes observations from more than 30 professional and amateur telescopes) and the Insight-HXMT Collaboration. We study the optical afterglow with empirical fitting from GRANDMA+HXMT data, augmented with data from the literature up to 60 days. We then model numerically, using a Bayesian approach, the GRANDMA and HXMT-LE afterglow observations, that we augment with Swift-XRT and additional optical/NIR observations reported in the literature. We find that the GRB afterglow, extinguished by a large dust column, is most likely behind a combination of a large Milky-Way dust column combined with moderate low-metallicity dust in the host galaxy. Using the GRANDMA+HXMT-LE+XRT dataset, we find that the simplest model, where the observed afterglow is produced by synchrotron radiation at the forward external shock during the deceleration of a top-hat relativistic jet by a uniform medium, fits the multi-wavelength observations only moderately well, with a tension between the observed temporal and spectral evolution. This tension is confirmed when using the extended dataset. We find that the consideration of a jet structure (Gaussian or power-law), the inclusion of synchrotron self-Compton emission, or the presence of an underlying supernova do not improve the predictions, showing that the modelling of GRB22109A will require going beyond the most standard GRB afterglow model. Placed in the global context of GRB optical afterglows, we find the afterglow of GRB 221009A is luminous but not extraordinarily so, highlighting that some aspects of this GRB do not deviate from the global known sample despite its extreme energetics and the peculiar afterglow evolution.

We demonstrate that the Curzon metric for a positive mass configuration possesses a singular event horizon with infinite area. This singularity has significant implications, revealing that the three-dimensional spatial hypersurfaces, which are orthogonal to the Killing vector field, exhibit a multiply connected structure. Furthermore, we investigate the dynamics of a test particle orbiting a central $\gamma$-object within this spacetime. It is found that under certain conditions, the particle's velocity can approach the speed of light, leading to an exceptionally high total energy at a specific value of the deformation parameter governing the spacetime structure. Moreover, we uncover a causality issue for a critical value of the deformation parameter, where the test particle can exceed the speed of light, potentially offering new insights into the theoretical existence of tachyons. This study contributes to the understanding of relativistic objects in deformed spacetimes and suggests that such violations of causality could play a role in explaining the elusive nature of tachyonic phenomena in high-energy physics.

We present optical observations of SN 2013dx, related to the Fermi burst GRB 130702A occurred at a redshift z = 0.145. It is the second-best sampled GRB-SN after SN~1998bw: the observational light curves contain more than 280 data points in uBgrRiz filters until 88 day after the burst, and the data were collected from our observational collaboration (Maidanak Observatory, Abastumani Observatory, Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, Mondy Observatory, National Observatory of Turkey, Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos) and from the literature. We model numerically the multicolour light curves using the one-dimensional radiation hydrodynamical code STELLA, previously widely implemented for the modelling of typical non-GRB SNe. The best-fitted model has the following parameters: pre-supernova star mass M = 25 M_Sun, mass of a compact remnant M_CR = 6 M_Sun, total energy of the outburst E_oburst = 3.5 x 10^(52) erg, pre-supernova star radius R = 100 R_Sun, M_56Ni = 0.2 M_Sun which is totally mixed through the ejecta; M_O = 16.6 M_Sun, M_Si = 1.2 M_Sun, and M_Fe = 1.2 M_Sun, and the radiative efficiency of the SN is 0.1 per cent.

We present in the form of a catalogue of the cosmological perturbations within the Bahamonde- Dialektopoulos-Levi Said (BDLS) theory, which serves as the teleparallel counterpart of Horndeski gravity. To understand structure formation in cosmological models, it is essential to study both the background and perturbative aspects of their cosmology. While extensive analysis of both Horndeski gravity and its teleparallel analog exists in the literature, a quantitative understanding requires a detailed examination of their cosmological perturbations. We review here all the different gauges for the scalar, vector and tensor perturbations of a cosmological background up to second order and we hope this will help people who work with observations, to incorporate it in existing codes.

X-ray reflection spectroscopy is a powerful tool to study the strong gravity region of black holes. The next generation of astrophysical X-ray missions promises to provide unprecedented high-quality data, which could permit us to get very precise measurements of the properties of the accretion flow and of the spacetime geometry in the strong gravity region around these objects. In this work, we test the accuracy of the relativistic calculations of the reflection model relxill and of its extension to non-Kerr spacetimes relxill_nk in view of the next generation of X-ray missions. We simulate simultaneous observations with Athena/X-IFU and LAD of bright Galactic black holes with a precise and accurate ray-tracing code and we fit the simulated data with the latest versions of relline and relline_nk. While we always recover the correct input parameters, we find residuals in the fits when the emission from the inner part of the accretion disk is higher. Such residuals disappear if we increase the number of interpolation points on the disk in the integral of the transfer function. We also simulate full reflection spectra and find that the emission angle from the accretion disk should be treated properly in this case.

We consider an infinite-dimensional non-linear operator related to a hard core (HC) model with a countable set $\mathbb{N}$ of spin values. It is known that finding the fixed points of an infinite-dimensional operator is generally impossible. But we have fully analyzed the fixed points of an infinite-dimensional operator by applying a technique of reducing an infinite-dimensional operator to a two-dimensional operator. The set of parameters is divided into subsets $A_{i,j},$ where the index $i$ means the number of fixed points on the line $y=x$, $j$ means the number of fixed points outside of $y=x.$ The number of fixed points can be up to seven, and the explicit form of each fixed point is found.

We analyze the evolution of perturbations of a (charged) massive scalar field near a regular Simpson-Visser black hole, allowing for a non-zero external magnetic field. We show that the damping rate of the quasinormal frequencies is strongly suppressed by both the magnetic field and the mass term, with indications that arbitrarily long-lived modes, or quasi-resonances, may exist in the spectrum. In the time domain, the quasinormal ringing transitions into slowly decaying oscillatory tails, which are qualitatively distinct from the massive tails observed in the absence of a magnetic field. For nonzero multipole and azimuthal numbers, the power-law envelope characteristic of cases without a magnetic field transforms into an oscillatory envelope that cannot be easily fitted with a simple analytical formula.

This work is devoted to study the effects of Einstein-\AE ther gravity on the dynamics of magnetized particles orbiting a static, spherically symmetric and uncharged black hole immersed in an external asymptotically uniform magnetic field in both comoving and proper observers frames. The analysis is carried out by varying the free parameters $c_{13}$ and $c_{14}$ of the Einstein-\AE ther theory and noticing their impacts on the particle trajectories, radii of the innermost stable circular orbits (ISCOs), and the amount of center-of-mass energy produced as a result of the collision. The strength of the magnetic field and the location of circular orbits is significantly affected by varying the above free parameters. We have also made detailed comparisons between the effects of parameters of Einstein-\AE ther and spin of rotating Kerr black holes on ISCO followed by magnetized particles and noticed that both black holes depict similar behaviour for suitable values of $c_{13}$, $c_{14}$, spin and the magnetic coupling parameters which provide exactly the same values for the ISCO. Finally, we have analysed the cases when a static \AE ther black hole can be described as Schwarzschild black hole in modified gravity (MOG) with the corresponding values of the parameters of the black holes.

Here we consider isofrequency pairing of geodesic orbits that share the same three orbital frequencies associated with $\Omega^{\hat{r}}$, $\Omega^{\hat{\varphi}}$, and $\Omega^{\hat{\omega}}$ in a particular region of parameter space around black string spacetime geometry. We study the effect arising from the extra compact spatial dimension on the isofrequency pairing of geodesic orbits and show that such orbits would occur and become in a cylindrical manner in the allowed region as particles move along the black string. We find that the effect due to the extra dimension leads to an increase in the number of the isofrequency pairing of geodesic orbits. We also find that isofrequency pairing of geodesic orbits in the region of parameter space can not be realized beyond the critical value $J_{cr} \approx 0.096$ of the conserved quantity of the motion due to the extra compact spatial dimension for given parameters of the black string.

Meridional flow is thought to play a very important role in the dynamics of the solar convection zone; however, because of its relatively small amplitude, precisely measuring it poses a significant challenge. Here we present a complete time-distance helioseismic analysis of about two years of ground-based GONG Doppler data to retrieve the meridional circulation profile for modest latitudes, in an attempt to corroborate results from other studies. We use an empirical correction to the travel times due to an unknown center-to-limb systematic effect. The helioseismic inversion procedure is first tested and reasonably validated on artificial data from a large-scale numerical simulation, followed by a test to broadly recover the solar differential rotation found from global seismology. From GONG data, we measure poleward photospheric flows at all latitudes with properties that are comparable with earlier studies, and a shallow equatorward flow about $65$\,Mm beneath the surface, in agreement with recent findings from HMI data. No strong evidence of multiple circulation cells in depth nor latitude is found, yet the whole phase space has not yet been explored. Tests of mass flux conservation are then carried out on the inferred GONG and HMI flows and compared to a fiducial numerical baseline from models, and we find that the continuity equation is poorly satisfied. While the two disparate data sets do give similar results for about the outer $15\%$ of the interior radius, the total inverted circulation pattern appears to be unphysical in terms of mass conservation when interpreted over modest time scales. We can likely attribute this to both the influence of realization noise and subtle effects in the data and measurement procedure.

The Bardeen black hole holds historical significance as the first model of a regular black hole. Recently, there have been proposed interpretations of the Bardeen spacetime as quantum corrections to the Schwarzschild solution. Our study focuses on investigating the quasinormal modes and Hawking radiation of the Bardeen black hole. We have observed that previous studies on the quasinormal modes for the Bardeen black hole suffer from inaccuracies that cannot be neglected. Therefore, we propose accurate calculations of the quasinormal modes for scalar, electromagnetic, and neutrino fields in the Bardeen spacetime. Additionally, we have computed the grey-body factors and analyzed the emission rates of Hawking radiation. Even when the quantum correction is small and the fundamental mode only slightly differs from its Schwarzschild value, the first several overtones deviate at an increasingly stronger rate. This deviation leads to the appearance of overtones with very small real oscillation frequencies. This outburst of overtones is closely linked to the fact that the quantum-corrected black hole differs from its classical limit primarily near the event horizon. Moreover, the intensity of the Hawking radiation is significantly suppressed (up to three orders of magnitude) by the quantum correction.

In this paper, we have investigated the dynamics of magnetized particles around 4-D Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet black hole immersed in an external asymptotically uniform magnetic field. We have shown that the magnetic interaction parameter responsible for circular orbits decreases for negative values of the Gauss-Bonnet parameter $\alpha$ and the range where magnetized particle's stable circular orbits are allowed increases for the positive values of the parameter $\alpha$. The study of the collisions of magnetized, charged and neutral particles has shown that the center-of-mass energy of the particles increases in the presence of positive Gauss-Bonnet parameter. Finally, we show how the magnetic interaction and Gauss-Bonnet parameter may mimic the effect of rotation of the Kerr black hole giving the same ISCO radius for magnetized particles. Detailed analysis of the ISCO show that spin of Kerr black hole can not be mimicked by the effects of magnetic interaction and the Gauss-Bonnet parameters when \alpha<-4.37 and the spin parameter a > 0.237.

The past 10 years have seen tremendous progress in our capability of testing General Relativity in the strong field regime with black hole observations. 10 years ago, the theory of General Relativity was almost completely unexplored in the strong field regime. Today, we have gravitational wave data of the coalescence of stellar-mass black holes, radio images of the supermassive black holes SgrA$^*$ and M87$^*$, and high-quality X-ray data of stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binaries and supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei. In this manuscript, we will review current efforts to test General Relativity with black hole X-ray data and we will provide a detailed description of the public codes available on ABHModels.