Faculty of Science (FNWI) - Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy (API)
Abstract
XMM-Newton is capable of making a transformational advance in our
understanding of how luminous accreting black holes work, by dedicating
about 10 per cent of future observing time to long observations, of
order Megaseconds, to X-ray variable Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN)
research. This would enable reverberation studies, already a commonplace
feature of AGN, to proceed to the next level and follow the behaviour of
the powerful dynamic corona. Such a dedicated legacy programme can only
be carried out with XMM-Newton.