Massive protostars have associated bipolar outflows with velocities of
hundreds of km/s. Such outflows produce strong shocks when interact with the
ambient medium leading to regions of non-thermal radio emission. Under certain
conditions, the population of relativistic particles accelerated at the
terminal shocks of the protostellar jets can produce significant gamma-ray
emission. We estimate the conditions necessary for high-energy emission in the
non-thermal hot spots of jets associated with massive protostars embedded in
dense molecular clouds. Our results show that particle-matter interactions can
lead to the detection of molecular clouds hosting massive young stellar objects
by the Fermi satellite at MeV-GeV energies and even by Cherenkov telescope
arrays in the GeV-TeV range. Astronomy at gamma-rays can be used to probe the
physical conditions in star forming regions and particle acceleration processes
in the complex environment of massive molecular clouds.Comment: Proceeding of the conference "High Energy Phenomena in Massive
Stars". Jaen (Spain), 2-5 February 200