Hot Milk: The hot phase of the Milky Way
This will be my major field of research for the next years.
Ponti et al. 2015; 2019.

The present activity of Sgr A^*, the central supermassive black hole
I have been and I am still planning multi-wavelength campaigns to monitor the present activity of Sgr A^* and to determine its primary radiative mechanism during X-ray flares.
Ponti et al. 2017.

Sgr A^* past activity
Since more than a decade, my team and I have been monitoring the massive molecular clouds around Sgr A^*, which are acting as mirrors of a past bright period of past activity of Sgr A^* itself. Using such light echo, we have been constraining the past activity of Sgr A^* and the 3 dimensional distribution of the clouds. Ponti et al. 2010; 2013.

Winds in X-ray binaries
XMM-Newton and the grating instrument aboard Chandra allowed us to demonstrate some of the fundamental roles played by winds in X-ray binaries for accretion physics. This field will see a huge leap forward when the planned X-ray calorimetric missions (such as XRISM and Athena) will be launched. Ponti et al. 2012; 2015; 2018; 2019.

Timing in accreting sources
Variability is one of the characteristics properties of accreting sources. Since the time of my master thesis I’ve been interested in characterising X-ray variability in accreting sources (AGN and X-ray binaries). Ponti et al. 2004; 2012.

Reverberation lags
Time lags represent a powerful tool to constrain the geometry of the variable X-ray sources and in particular of their accretion flow. I have supervised some of the excellent scientists working in the field. De Marco et al. 2013; 2013b; 2015; 2017.

Strong gravity and outflows in AGN
Since the time of my PhD I have been interested in using X-ray observation to constrain general relativity in the strong gravitational field, through the observation of relativistically broadened lines. Ponti et al. 2006; Ponti et al. 2010.

Outflows in AGN
I have been and I am still involved in the design and realisation of several multi-wavelength campaigns aimed at investigating the physics of outflows in AGN. Kaastra et al. 2014.

Additionally, I am always looking out for interesting new project to start working on!