Theoretical models and observations suggest that primordial Stellar Black Holes (Pop-III-BHs) were prolifically formed in HMXBs, which are powerful relativistic jet sources of synchrotron radiation called Microquasars (MQs).

Large populations of BH-HMXB-MQs at cosmic dawn produce a smooth synchrotron cosmic radio background (CRB) that could account for the excess amplitude of atomic hydrogen absorption at z∼17, recently reported by EDGES.

BH-HMXB-MQs at cosmic dawn precede supernovae, neutron stars and dust. BH-HMXB-MQs promptly inject into the IGM hard X-rays and relativistic jets, which overtake the slowly expanding HII regions ionized by progenitor Pop-III stars, heating and partially ionizing the IGM over larger distance scales.

BH-HMXBs are channels for the formation of Binary-Black-Holes (BBHs). The large masses of BBHs detected by gravitational waves, relative to the masses of BHs detected by X-rays, and the high rates of BBH-mergers, are consistent with high formation rates of BH-HMXBs and BBHs in the early universe.

Active galactic nuclei, hosting supermassive black holes and launching relativistic jets, are the most numerous objects on the gamma-ray sky. At the other end of the mass scale, phenomena related to stellar mass black holes, in particular gamma-ray bursts and microquasars, are also seen on the gamma-ray sky. While all of them are thought to launch relativistic jets, the diversity even within each of these classes is enormous. In this review, I will discuss recent very high energy gamma-ray results that underline both the similarity of the black hole systems, as well as their diversity.

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 & Rodríguez 1994). The observations of these two star forming regions at centimeter (Mirabel & Rodríguez 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.

The discovery of relativistic jets and superluminal sources associated with accreting X-ray binaries in the Galaxy opened new ways of investigating the physics of outflows from compact objects. The short timescales and relatively large angular sizes of Galactic jets allow to probe the physics of relativistic outflows to unprecedented details. In this article I discuss results of recent modelling of Galactic jets, covering both radiative and dynamical aspects, which can shed light on different features of their extragalactic cousins.

We present an inhomogeneous synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) model for active parts of jets in low mass microquasars. We compare results of our model computed, for typical parameters of microquasars, with the sensitivity of Fermi-LAT.

Significant historic cosmic evolution for the formation rate of stellar black holes is inferred from current theoretical models of the evolution of massive stars, the multiple observations of compact stellar remnants in the near and distant universe, and the cosmic chemical evolution. The mean mass of stellar black holes, the fraction of black holes/neutron stars, and the fraction of black hole high mass X-ray binaries (BH-HMXBs)/solitary black holes increase with redshift. The energetic feedback from large populations of BH-HMXBs form in the first generations of star burst galaxies has been overlooked in most cosmological models of the reionization epoch of the universe. The powerful radiation, jets, and winds from BH-HMXBs heat the intergalactic medium over large volumes of space and keep it ionized until AGN take over. It is concluded that stellar black holes constrained the properties of the faintest galaxies at high redshifts. I present here the theoretical and observational grounds for the historic cosmic evolution of stellar black holes. Detailed calculations on their cosmic impact are presented elsewhere (Mirabel, Dijkstra, Laurent, Loeb, & Pritchard 2011).

Microquasars are X-ray binaries that show extended radio jets. These jets can accelerate particles up to relativistic energies that produce non-thermal emission from radio to TeV, and could also make a non-negligible contribution to the galactic CRs in some energy ranges. The orbital motion and compactness of these sources allow the study of high-energy astrophysical phenomena in extreme conditions that change in accessible timescales. In this work, I briefly discuss the production of broadband non-thermal emission in microquasars, putting special emphasis on the high- and the very high-energy bands.

We present results of a broadband spectroscopy of the galactic microquasars and black hole candidates XTE J1550-564 and GRO J1655-40, performed with the INTEGRAL and RXTE observatories during strong outbursts in 2003 and 2005, respectively. The spectral parameters evolution was traced during brightening and fading phases of each outburst to search a possible hysteresis and transitions from state to state. We estimated a size and optical depth of different regions around XTE J1550-564, like a hot plasma zone and optically thick accretion disk. Upper limits to the annihilation 511 keV line emission were obtained for both sources using data of the SPI spectrometer onboard the INTEGRAL observatory.