Unveiling the nature of the unidentified gamma-ray sources II: radio, infrared and optical counterparts of the gamma-ray blazar candidates

TL;DR

This paper introduces an improved infrared-based method to identify gamma-ray blazar candidates among unidentified sources in the Fermi LAT catalog, successfully associating about 20% of them and comparing results with existing literature.

Contribution

The study develops and applies a novel infrared color-based association method to identify gamma-ray blazar candidates, enhancing detection efficiency and providing a new catalog of counterparts.

Findings

Approximately 20% of UGSs have IR counterparts identified.

The method shows improved efficiency over previous approaches.

Comparison with literature validates the new associations.

Abstract

A significant fraction (~30%) of the high-energy gamma-ray sources listed in the second Fermi LAT catalog (2FGL) are still of unknown origin, being not yet associated with counterparts at low energies. We recently developed a new association method to identify if there is a gamma-ray blazar candidate within the positional uncertainty region of a generic 2FGL source. This method is entirely based on the discovery that blazars have distinct infrared colors with respect to other extragalactic sources found thanks, to the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) all-sky observations. Several improvements have been also performed to increase the efficiency of our method in recognizing gamma-ray blazar candidates. In this paper we applied our method to two different samples, the first constituted by the unidentified gamma-ray sources (UGSs) while the second by the active galaxies of uncertain type (AGUs), both listed in the 2FGL. We present a catalog of IR counterparts for ~20% of the UGSs investigated. Then, we also compare our results on the associated sources with those present in literature. In addition, we illustrate the extensive archival research carried out to identify the radio, infrared, optical and X-ray counterparts of the WISE selected, gamma-ray blazar candidates. Finally, we discuss the future developments of our method based on ground-based follow-up observations.