Optical archival spectra of blazar candidates of uncertain type in the 3$^{rd}$ Fermi Large Area Telescope Catalog

TL;DR

This study confirms the blazar nature of 42 uncertain gamma-ray sources from the 3FGL catalog using optical spectra and infrared colors, classifying them into BL Lacs and quasars.

Contribution

It provides optical spectral confirmation and classification of 42 blazar candidates of uncertain type from the 3FGL catalog, utilizing SDSS and 6dFGS data.

Findings

All 42 sources are confirmed as blazars.

28 are classified as BL Lacs.

8 are identified as radio-loud quasars.

Abstract

Despite the fact that blazars constitute the rarest class among active galactic nuclei (AGNs) they are the largest known population of associated $\gamma$-ray sources. Many of the $\gamma$-ray objects listed in the Fermi-Large Area Telescope Third Source catalog (3FGL) are classified as blazar candidates of uncertain type (BCUs), either because they show multifrequency behaviour similar to blazars but lacking optical spectra in the literature, or because the quality of such spectra is too low to confirm their nature. Here we select, out of 585 BCUs in the 3FGL, 42 BCUs which we identify as probable blazars by their WISE infrared colors and which also have optical spectra that are available in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and/or Six-Degree Field Galaxy Survey Database (6dFGS). We confirm the blazar nature of all of the sources. We furthermore conclude that 28 of them are BL Lacs, 8 are radio-loud quasars with flat radio spectrum and 6 are BL Lac whose emission is dominated by their host galaxy.