Speaker
Description
The microquasar system SS 433 provides a unique opportunity to study mildly relativistic collimated jets in our own Galaxy. While much is known about the nature of the precessing inner jets, the dynamics at large distances from the central binary system are poorly constrained. The abrupt reappearance of non-thermal x-ray synchrotron emission at around 25 parsecs either side of the core indicates the presence of a site of strong energy dissipation, though its origin and role in the jet dynamics cannot be uniquely determined through the synchrotron emission alone. In this talk, I will report on recent observations of this system by several very-high-energy gamma-ray instruments, which directly trace the inverse-Compton emission arising from the energetic electron population. These observations, in particular the H.E.S.S. discovery of energy- dependent morphology in the gamma-ray emission from the jets, establish the location of one of the most effective particle accelerators in the Galaxy and constrain the dynamics of the parsec-scale jets. The findings concerning particle acceleration in the jets of SS 433 can then be extrapolated to other sources hosting powerful relativistic jets which are too distant for their gamma-ray emission to be spatially resolved by the current generation of telescopes.
