Data di Pubblicazione:
2012
Abstract:
One of the main scientific objectives of the ongoing Fermi mission is unveiling the nature of unidentified γ -ray
sources (UGSs). Despite the major improvements of Fermi in the localization of γ -ray sources with respect to
the past γ -ray missions, about one-third of the Fermi-detected objects are still not associated with low-energy
counterparts. Recently, using the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer survey, we discovered that blazars, the rarest
class of active galactic nuclei and the largest population of γ -ray sources, can be recognized and separated from
other extragalactic sources on the basis of their infrared (IR) colors. Based on this result, we designed an association
method for the γ -ray sources to recognize if there is a blazar candidate within the positional uncertainty region of
a generic γ -ray source. With this new IR diagnostic tool, we searched for γ -ray blazar candidates associated with
the UGS sample of the second Fermi γ -ray LAT catalog (2FGL). We found that our method associates at least one
γ -ray blazar candidate as a counterpart to each of 156 out of 313 UGSs analyzed. These new low-energy candidates
have the same IR properties as the blazars associated with γ -ray sources in the 2FGL catalog.
Tipologia CRIS:
03A-Articolo su Rivista
Keywords:
BL Lacertae objects: general , galaxies: active , gamma rays: galaxies , radiation mechanisms: non-thermal
Elenco autori:
F. Massaro;R. D'Abrusco;G. Tosti;M. Ajello;A. Paggi;D. Gasparrini
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