Jet-induced star formation by a microquasar
  Theoretical and observational work show that jets from AGN can trigger star
formation. However, in the Milky Way the first -and so far- only clear case of
relativistic jets inducing star formation has been found in the surroundings of
the microquasar GRS 1915+105. Here we summarize the multiwavelength
observations of two compact star formation IRAS sources axisymmetrically
located and aligned with the position angle of the sub-arcsec relativistic jets
from the stellar black hole binary GRS 1915+105 (Mirabel & Rodriguez 1994). The
observations of these two star forming regions at centimeter (Rodriguez &
Mirabel 1998), millimeter and infrared (Chaty et al. 2001) wavelengths had
suggested -despite the large uncertainties in the distances a decade ago- that
the jets from GRS 1915+105 are triggering along the radio jet axis the
formation of massive stars in a radio lobe of bow shock structure. Recently,
Reid et al.(2014) found that the jet source and the IRAS sources are at the
same distance, enhancing the evidence for the physical association between the
jets from GRS 1915+105 and star formation in the IRAS sources. We conclude that
as jets from AGN, jets from microquasars can trigger the formation of massive
stars, but at distances of a few tens of parsecs. Although star formation
induced by microquasar jets may not be statistically significant in the Milky
Way, jets from stellar black holes may have been important to trigger star
formation during the re-ionization epoch of the universe (Mirabel et al. 2011).
Because of the relative proximity of GRS 1915+105 and the associated star
forming regions, they may serve as a nearby laboratory to gain insight into the
physics of jet-trigger star formation elsewhere in the universe.
