ESO VLT Optical Spectroscopy of BL Lac Objects IV. New spectra and properties of the full sample

TL;DR

This study presents new optical spectra for 33 BL Lac objects, confirming their nature and determining redshifts, thereby creating a homogeneous sample of about 70 objects for detailed analysis of their properties.

Contribution

It provides the final data set of high-quality spectra for a large, homogeneous sample of BL Lac objects, including new redshift measurements and spectral properties.

Findings

Confirmed BL Lac nature for 25 sources

Obtained new redshifts for 5 objects

Constructed a homogeneous sample of ~70 BL Lacs

Abstract

We present the last chapter of a spectroscopy program aimed at deriving the redshift or a lower limit to the redshift of BL Lac objects using medium resolution spectroscopy. Here we report new spectra for 33 BL Lac object candidates obtained in 2008-2009 confirming the BL Lac nature of 25 sources and for 5 objects we obtained new redshifts. These new observations are combined with our previous data in order to construct a homogeneous sample of \sim 70 BL Lacs with high quality spectroscopy. All these spectra can be accessed at the website http://www.oapd.inaf.it/zbllac/. The average spectrum, beaming properties of the full sample, discussion on intervening systems and future perspectives are addressed.