The Early History of Microquasar Research

TL;DR

This paper reviews the early development of microquasar research, highlighting their significance in understanding relativistic jets, accretion processes, and their role as laboratories for testing General Relativity.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive historical overview of microquasar discoveries and their impact on high-energy astrophysics and fundamental physics.

Findings

Microquasars mimic quasar phenomena on a smaller scale.

They offer insights into relativistic jets and accretion physics.

They serve as laboratories for testing General Relativity.

Abstract

Microquasars are compact objects (stellar-mass black holes and neutron stars) that mimic, on a smaller scale, many of the phenomena seen in quasars. Their discovery provided new insights into the physics of relativistic jets observed elsewhere in the universe, and the accretion--jet coupling. Microquasars are opening new horizons for the understanding of ultraluminous X-ray sources observed in external galaxies, gamma-ray bursts of long duration, and the origin of stellar black holes and neutron stars. Microquasars are one of the best laboratories to probe General Relativity in the limit of the strongest gravitational fields, and as such, have become an area of topical interest for both high energy physics and astrophysics.