Recent studies have indicated that cosmic ray acceleration by a first-order Fermi process in magnetic reconnection current sheets can be efficient enough in the surrounds of compact sources. In this work, we discuss this acceleration mechanism operating in the core region of galactic black hole binaries (or microquasars) and show the conditions under which this can be more efficient than shock acceleration. In addition, we compare the corresponding acceleration rate with the relevant radiative loss rates obtaining the possible energy cut-off of the accelerated particles and also compute the expected spectral energy distribution (SED) for two sources of this class, namely Cygnus X-1 and Cygnus X-3, considering both leptonic and hadronic processes. The derived SEDs are comparable to the observed ones in the low and high energy ranges. Our results suggest that hadronic non-thermal emission due to photo-meson production may produce the very high energy gamma-rays in these microquasars.

The detection of astrophysical very high energy (VHE) neutrinos in the range of TeV-PeV energies by the IceCube observatory has opened a new season in high energy astrophysics. Energies ∼PeV imply that the neutrinos are originated from sources where cosmic rays (CRs) can be accelerated up to ∼ 10 17 eV. Recently, we have shown that the observed TeV gamma-rays from radio-galaxies may have a hadronic origin in their nuclear region and in such a case this could lead to neutrino production. In this paper we show that relativistic protons accelerated by magnetic reconnection in the core region of these sources may produce HE neutrinos via the decay of charged pions produced by photo-meson process. We have also calculated the diffuse flux of HE neutrinos and found that it can be associated to the IceCube data.

Fast Magnetic Reconnection is currently regarded as an important process also beyond the solar system, specially in magnetically dominated regions of galactic and extragalactic sources like the surrounds of black holes and relativistic jets. In this lecture we discuss briefly the theory of fast magnetic reconnection, specially when driven by turbulence which is very frequent in Astrophysical flows, and its implications for relativistic particle acceleration. Then we discuss these processes in the context of the sources above, showing recent analytical and multidimensional numerical MHD studies that indicate that fast reconnection can be a powerful process to accelerate particles to relativistic velocities, produce the associated high energy non-thermal emission, and account for efficient conversion of magnetic into kinetic energy in these flows.

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