Gamma-rays from massive protostars
Abstract
Massive protostars have associated bipolar outflows with velocities of hundreds of km/s. Such outflows produce strong shocks when interact with the ambient medium leading to regions of non-thermal radio emission. Under certain conditions, the population of relativistic particles accelerated at the terminal shocks of the protostellar jets can produce significant gamma-ray emission. We estimate the conditions necessary for high-energy emission in the non-thermal hot spots of jets associated with massive protostars embedded in dense molecular clouds. Our results show that particle-matter interactions can lead to the detection of molecular clouds hosting massive young stellar objects by the Fermi satellite at MeV-GeV energies and even by Cherenkov telescope arrays in the GeV-TeV range. Astronomy at gamma-rays can be used to probe the physical conditions in star forming regions and particle acceleration processes in the complex environment of massive molecular clouds.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0908.0931,
title = {Gamma-rays from massive protostars},
author = {Gustavo E. Romero and Anabella T. Araudo and Valenti Bosch-Ramon and Josep M. Paredes},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0908.0931},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
Proceeding of the conference "High Energy Phenomena in Massive Stars". Jaen (Spain), 2-5 February 2009