The innermost environment of young supermassive black holes

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How does material fall into a black hole? What is the material falling into a black hole made of? How close does it get to the black hole before it disappears? Do black holes spin? We live in a unique era in that we can now attempt to answer such questions based on observations, and not theory alone. X-rays are emitted from the regions closest to black holes, where temperatures and conditions are most extreme. By studying the X-ray variability and spectral properties of supermassive black holes, known as active galactic nuclei, we can decipher what the environment nearest the black hole looks like. The proposed plan is to observe active galaxies with deep X-rays observations at various epochs over the course of years. Characterising the behaviour of the black holes on short (e.g. hourly) and long (e.g. month-years) time scales will reveal their intrinsic properties.