A New Multi-Wavelength Census of Blazars

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive new catalog of 1580 blazar candidates with homogeneous sky coverage, especially at low Galactic latitudes, using multi-wavelength data to aid in identifying sources of high-energy astrophysical phenomena.

Contribution

The study introduces the ALMA Blazar Candidates catalog, filling gaps in current blazar catalogs at low Galactic latitudes with a homogeneous, multi-wavelength dataset and classification of candidate gamma-ray blazars.

Findings

ABC sources are dimmer in Gaia g band and bluer in SDSS and WISE colors.

Majority (~90%) of ABC sources are classified as QSOs, with some galactic objects.

ABC sources are similar in X-rays to known blazars but dimmer and softer in gamma-rays.

Abstract

Context:Blazars are the rarest and most powerful active galactic nuclei, playing a crucial and growing role in today multi-frequency and multi-messenger astrophysics. Current blazar catalogs, however, are incomplete and particularly depleted at low Galactic latitudes. Aims: We aim at augmenting the current blazar census to build a catalog of blazar candidates with homogeneous sky coverage that can provide candidate counterparts to unassociated gamma-ray sources, sources of high-energy neutrino emission, and ultra-high energy cosmic rays. Methods: Starting from the ALMA Calibrator Catalog we built a catalog of 1580 blazar candidates (ALMA Blazar Candidates, ABC) for which we collect multi-wavelength information. We also compared ABC sources with existing blazar catalogs. Results: The ABC catalogue fills the lack of low Galactic latitude sources in current blazar catalogues. ABC sources are significantly dimmer than known blazars in Gaia g band, and they appear bluer in SDSS and WISE colors. The majority of ABC sources (~ 90%) have optical spectra that classify them as QSO, while the remaining sources resulted galactic objects. ABC sources are similar in X-rays to known blazar, while in gamma-rays they are on average dimmer and softer, indicating a significant contribution of FSRQ sources. Making use of WISE colours, we classified 715 ABC sources as candidate gamma-ray blazar of different classes. Conclusions: We built a new catalogue of 1580 candidate blazars with a rich multi-wavelength data-set, filling the lack of low Galactic latitude sources in current blazar catalogues. This will be particularly important to identify the source population of high energy neutrinos or ultra-high energy cosmic rays. The data collected by the upcoming LSST surveys will provide a key tool to investigate the possible blazar nature of these sources.