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Session 32 - All Sky Imaging Surveys of Black Hole Candidates & AGN - II.
Oral session, Tuesday, June 10
North Main Hall A,
Results from more than one year of operation of the RXTE ASM are reviewed from the perspective of continual monitoring of both accreting binaries and active galactic nuclei. X-ray transients, including the 2 sources of superluminal radio jets, have exhibited enormously complex X-ray light curves. Progress has been achieved in our understanding the outburst mechanism via the reported detection of an optical precursor to the April 1996 outburst in GRO J1655-40. The ASM light curves have contributed to multifrequency campaigns on additional black hole binaries or candidates such as Cyg X-1, GRS1915+105, and GRS1739-278. Variations in bright extragalactic sources, such as NGC4151, Cen A, and Mkn501, are also detected, leading to new opportunities for reverberation studies made in conjunction with ground-based telescopes. The public ASM archive empowers observers with alerts for state-dependent observing opportunities. The ASM also provides a long-term context for source behavior, and this knowledge may be crucial in shaping the interpretation of brief observations with larger telescopes.
