46th COSPAR Scientific Assembly E1.8: Accretion Disks and Coronae in AGN: Observation and Theoretical advances

Meeting Dates: 1 - 8 August, 2026
Meeting Location: Florence, Italy
Registration Deadline: 13 February 2026

The accretion of matter onto supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in AGN leads to complex observational characteristics across all wavebands. Spectral, polarisation, and rapid variability measurements all yield significant insight into the physical processes operating near SMBHs, including the regime of extreme gravity. Recent crucial observational advances include those provided by X-ray missions such as IXPE, XRISM, eROSITA, Einstein Probe, and SVOM.

This event aims to bring together both theorists and observers to review the latest advances in our understanding of inner accretion flows in AGN including (i) X-ray spectral, timing, and polarisation properties, (ii) advances in modelling the disk, hot and warm coronae, and outflows, (iii) the disc/corona interplay, including X-ray reflection and disc thermal reverberation, and (iv) observations of extragalactic nuclear transients, including Changing-Look AGN, Tidal Disruption Events, and Quasi-Periodic Eruptions, the mechanisms that drive them, and their relationship with persistently-accreting AGN.

Invited Speakers: Ehud Behar (Technion, Israel), Bożena Czerny (Center for Theoretical Physics, Poland), Scott Hagen (IFPU/SISSA, Italy), Claudio Ricci (University of Geneva, Switzerland), Alexander Tchekhovskoy (Northwestern University, USA), Sophia Waddell (McGill University, Canada), Adam Ingram (Newcastle University, To be confirmed).

Scientific Organizers: Gulab Dewangan (IUCAA, India) & Alex Markowitz (CAMK, Poland)

Scientific Organizing Committee: Cosimo Bambi (Fudan University, China), Johannes Buchner (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Germany) Bożena Czerny (Center for Theoretical Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland), Barbara De Marco (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain), Michal Dovciak (Astronomical Institute of the CAS, Czech Republic), Giorgio Matt (Roma Tre University, Italy), Iossif Papadakis (University of Crete, Greece), Dheeraj R. Pasham (MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, USA), James N. Reeves (The Catholic University of America, USA).

For additional questions, please see the conference website : https://cospar2026.org/

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Cheers,
Gulab