Discovery of a High-Energy Gamma-Ray-Emitting Persistent Microquasar

Abstract

Microquasars are stellar x-ray binaries that behave as a scaled down version of extragalactic quasars. The star LS 5039 is a new microquasar system with apparent persistent ejection of relativistic plasma at a 3 kiloparsec distance from the sun. It may also be associated with a gamma-ray source discovered by the Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope (EGRET) on board the COMPTON-Gamma Ray Observatory satellite. Before the discovery of LS 5039, merely a handful of microquasars had been identified in the Galaxy, and none of them was detected in high-energy gamma-rays.

13 pages, 3 figures, LaTeX, uses aaspp4.sty. Published in Science, 2000 June 30. Related papers may be found at http://www.am.ub.es/~josep/papers/index.html