Ultra-High-Energy Gamma-Ray Bubble around Microquasar V4641 Sgr

TL;DR

This paper reports the detection of ultra-high-energy gamma-ray emission from the microquasar V4641 Sgr, revealing particle acceleration at large distances from the black hole and suggesting microquasars as potential sources of Galactic cosmic rays.

Contribution

First detection of TeV gamma-ray emission from V4641 Sgr, showing particle acceleration similar to SS 433 and indicating microquasars may be more common cosmic ray sources.

Findings

Gamma-ray spectrum up to 200 TeV with a very hard spectrum.

Particle acceleration occurs at large distances from the black hole.

Microquasars could significantly contribute to Galactic cosmic rays.

Abstract

Microquasars are laboratories for the study of jets of relativistic particles produced by accretion onto a spinning black hole. Microquasars are near enough to allow detailed imaging of spatial features across the multiwavelength spectrum. The recent extension of the spatial morphology of a microquasar, SS 433, to TeV gamma rays \cite{abeysekara2018very} localizes the acceleration of electrons at shocks in the jet far from the black hole \cite{hess2024ss433}. Here we report TeV gamma-ray emission from another microquasar, V4641~Sgr, which reveals particle acceleration at similar distances from the black hole as SS~433. Additionally, the gamma-ray spectrum of V4641 is among the hardest TeV spectra observed from any known gamma-ray source and is detected up to 200 TeV. Gamma rays are produced by particles, either electrons or hadrons, of higher energies. Because electrons lose energy more quickly the higher their energy, such a spectrum either very strongly constrains the electron production mechanism or points to the acceleration of high-energy hadrons. This observation suggests that large-scale jets from microquasars could be more common than previously expected and that microquasars could be a significant source of Galactic cosmic rays. high energy gamma-rays also provide unique constraints on the acceleration mechanisms of extra-Galactic cosmic rays postulated to be produced by the supermassive black holes and relativistic jets of quasars. The distance to quasars limits imaging studies due to insufficient angular resolution of gamma-rays and due to attenuation of the highest energy gamma-rays by the extragalactic background light.