Speaker
Description
X-ray binaries offer a unique opportunity to study accretion in relatively clean environments and on human-accessible timescales, much shorter than those typical of AGN and quasars. Over the past few decades, the coupling between accretion and ejection processes in these systems has been extensively investigated, primarily through X-ray and radio continuum observations. More recently, systematic studies of their X-ray, ultraviolet, optical, and infrared spectral lines have revealed the presence of accretion disc winds. These winds appear in both high-ionisation phases, typically traced by X-ray absorption lines, and low-ionisation phases, revealed through optical and infrared transitions, showing that substantial amounts of both hot and cold gas are expelled from these systems. In this talk, I will highlight key observational advances of this rapidly evolving field, with emphasis on the likely multiphase nature of the phenomenon and its possible impact on the dynamics of the accretion disc.