On the reprocessing of gamma-rays produced by jets

Abstract

Systems of two very different sizescales are known to produce very high-energy (VHE) radiation in their jets: AGNs and microquasars. The produced VHE photons (Eγ ∼ 1 TeV) can be absorbed by the intense environmental soft photon fields, coming from the companion star (in high mass binaries) or from the accreting material (disk+corona in AGNs), as these are the dominant sources at energies around ∼ (m<SUB>e</SUB> c<SUP>2</SUP> ) <SUP>2</SUP>/Eγ . Energetic pairs are created by the photonphoton annihilation, and, depending on how efficient are the competing cooling channels, the absorption can lead to a reprocessing by Inverse Compton pair-cascade development. A selfconsistent modeling of these systems as gamma-ray sources should then include, along with the emission and absorption processes, a thorough treatment of the pair cascades. We discuss here on this issue, focusing on our (preliminary) results of numerical simulations devoted to a study case similar to the high-mass microquasar candidate LS 5039.