Are many radio-selected BL Lacs radio quasars in disguise?

TL;DR

This study reveals that classifying blazars as BL Lacs or FSRQs based solely on optical emission line widths can be misleading, especially at high redshifts where key lines shift out of optical range.

Contribution

The paper demonstrates that high-redshift blazars can be misclassified due to the shifting of emission lines out of optical bands, highlighting the need for infrared observations in blazar classification.

Findings

Some high-redshift BL Lacs show strong Halpha emission lines.

Misclassification of blazars is possible when relying only on optical line widths.

Infrared spectroscopy is crucial for accurate blazar classification at high redshifts.

Abstract

We show that a blazar classification in BL Lacs and Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars may not be adequate when it relies solely on the equivalent widths (EWs) of optical lines. In fact, depending on redshift, some strong emission lines can fall in the infrared window and be missed. We selected a sample of BL Lacs with firm redshift identification and good visibility from Paranal. We targeted with the X-shooter spectrograph the five BL Lacs with z > 0.7, i.e., those for which the Halpha line, one of the strongest among blazars, falls outside the optical window and determined the EW of emission lines in both the infrared and optical bands. Two out of five sources show an observed Halpha EW > 5A (one has rest frame EW > 5A) and could be classified as FSRQs by one of the classification schemes used in the literature. A third object is border-line with an observed EW of 4.4 +/- 0.5A. In all these cases Halpha is the strongest emission line detected. The Halpha line of the other two blazars is not detected, but in one case it falls in a region strongly contaminated by sky lines and in the other one the spectrum is featureless. We conclude that a blazar classification based on EW width only can be inaccurate and may lead to an erroneous determination of blazar evolution. This effect is more severe for the BL Lac class, since FSRQs can be misclassified as BL Lacs especially at high redshifts (z > 0.7), where the latter are extremely rare.