Aims.We report on observations of the eclipsing and interacting binary beta Lyrae from the Suzaku X-ray telescope. This system involves an early B star embedded in an optically and geometrically thick disk that is siphoning atmospheric gases from a less massive late B II companion. Methods.Motivated by an unpublished X-ray spectrum from the Einstein X-ray telescope suggesting unusually hard emission, we obtained time with Suzaku for pointings at three different phases within a single orbit. Results.From the XIS detectors, the softer X-ray emission appears typical of an early-type star. What is surprising is the remarkably unchanging character of this emission, both in luminosity and in spectral shape, despite the highly asymmetric geometry of the system. We see no eclipse effect below 10 keV. The constancy of the soft emission is plausibly related to the wind of the embedded B star and Thomson scattering of X-rays in the system, although it might be due to extended shock structures arising near the accretion disk as a result of the unusually high mass-transfer rate. There is some evidence from the PIN instrument for hard emission in the 10-60 keV range. Follow-up observations with the RXTE satellite will confirm this preliminary detection.

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This thesis concerns the use of observations of gravitational waves as tools for astronomy and fundamental physics. Gravitational waves are small ripples in spacetime produced by rapidly accelerating masses; their existence has been predicted for almost 100 years, but the first direct evidence of their existence came only very recently with the announcement in February 2016 of the detection by the LIGO and VIRGO collaborations. Part I of this thesis presents an introduction to gravitational wave astronomy, including a detailed discussion of a wide range of gravitational wave sources, their signal morphologies, and the experimental detectors used to observe them. Part II of this thesis concerns a particular data analysis problem which often arises when trying to infer the source properties from a gravitational wave observation. The use of an inaccurate signal model can cause significant systematic errors in the inferred source parameters. The work in this section concerns a proposed technique, called the Gaussian process marginalised likelihood, for overcoming this problem. Part III of this thesis concerns the possibility of testing if the gravitational field around an astrophysical black hole conforms to the predictions of general relativity and the cosmic censorship hypothesis. It is expected that the gravitational field should be well described by the famous Kerr solution. Two approaches for testing this hypothesis are considered; one using X-ray observations and one using gravitational waves. The results from these two approaches are compared and contrasted. Finally, the conclusions and a discussion of future prospects are presented in part IV of this thesis.