Evidence of non-thermal X-ray emission from HH 80
  Protostellar jets appear at all stages of star formation when the accretion
process is still at work. Jets travel at velocities of hundreds of km/s,
creating strong shocks when interacting with interstellar medium. Several cases
of jets have been detected in X-rays, typically showing soft emission. For the
first time, we report evidence of hard X-ray emission possibly related to
non-thermal processes not explained by previous models of the post-shock
emission predicted in the jet/ambient interaction scenario. HH 80 is located at
the south head of the jet associated to the massive protostar IRAS 18162-2048.
It shows soft and hard X-ray emission in regions that are spatially separated,
with the soft X-ray emission region situated behind the region of hard X-ray
emission. We propose a scenario for HH 80 where soft X-ray emission is
associated to thermal processes from the interaction of the jet with denser
ambient matter and the hard X-ray emission is produced by synchrotron radiation
at the front shock.
