Andrew Lobban - Personal Profiles

Main Research Fields

My research focuses on the astrophysics of accreting black holes, which are among the most powerful sources in the known Universe. I am primarily interested in the processes powering the supermassive black holes found within active galactic nuclei (AGN), offering unique glimpses into the physics of strong gravity, accretion discs, jets and outflows. I primarily study the highly-energetic X-ray emission from AGN which provides a unique insight into the regions closest to the central black hole where strong gravity dominates. Given that most, if not all, large galaxies appear to host a supermassive black hole at their nucleus, they likely play a critical role in both galaxy formation and evolution.

I am interested in ultra-fast outflows, high-resolution broad-band spectral modelling, and time-domain astronomy - in particular, the up-and-coming field of small-timescale X-ray, UV and optical analysis.  By combining these techniques (i.e. 'spectral-timing analysis') and applying transformative, state-of-the-art models/techniques to a wealth of in-hand, upcoming and archival data, I aim to help understand the accretion and ejection processes in accreting-black-hole systems. I have been a research fellow at ESA since November 2019 and I work as part of the XMM-Newton / accretion science group. A large proportion of my research depends highly upon ESA instruments, such as XMM-Newton. In addition, I also use data from satellites such as Chandra, NuSTAR, Swift, and Suzaku.