The microquasar SS433 features the most energetic jets known in our Galaxy. A large fraction of the jet kinetic power is delivered to the surrounding W50 nebula at the jet termination shock, from which high-energy emission and cosmic-ray production h
ave been anticipated. Here we report on the detection of a persistent gamma-ray signal from the direction of SS433/W50 with the Fermi Large Area Telescope. The steady flux and a narrow spectral energy distribution with a maximum around 250 MeV suggest that gamma-rays are rendered by the bulk jet kinetic power through proton-proton collisions at the SS433/W50 interaction regions. If the same mechanism is operating in other baryon-loaded microquasar jets, their collective contribution may represent a significant fraction of the total galactic cosmic-ray flux at GeV energies.
Recent observations of binary systems obtained with the H.E.S.S. telescopes are providing crucial information on the physics of relativistic outflows and the engines powering them. We report here on new H.E.S.S. results on HESS J0632+057, PSR B1259-6
3/LS 2883, Eta Carinae and the recently discovered source HESS J1018-589. Despite the high-quality data obtained in the last years through both ground and space-based gamma-ray detectors, many questions on the mechanisms that permit binary systems to emit at gamma-rays remain open. In particular, it is becoming apparent that emission at high and very-high energies is uncorrelated in some gamma-ray binary systems, with bright GeV flares not observed at TeV energies (e.g. PSR B1259-63), and sources periodically detected at VHEs which are lacking its HE counterpart (e.g. HESS J0632+057). Our results mainly confirm the predictions derived previously for the studied sources, but unexpected results are also found in a few cases, which are discussed in the context of contemporaneous observations at lower energies.
