Abstract
We recently developed a procedure to recognize \(\gamma\)-ray blazar candidates within the positional uncertainty regions of the unidentified/unassociated \(\gamma\)-ray sources (UGSs). Such procedure was based on the discovery that Fermi blazars show peculiar infrared colors. However, to confirm the real nature of the selected candidates, optical spectroscopic data are necessary. Thus, we performed an extensive archival search for spectra available in the literature in parallel with an optical spectroscopic campaign aimed to reveal and confirm the nature of the selected \(\gamma\)-ray blazar candidates. Here, we first search for optical spectra of a selected sample of \(\gamma\)-ray blazar candidates that can be potential counterparts of UGSs using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS DR12). This search enables us to update the archival search carried out to date. We also describe the state-of-art and the future perspectives of our campaign to discover previously unknown \(\gamma\)-ray blazars.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the anonymous referee for useful comments that led to improvements in the paper. F.M. gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Programma Giovani Ricercatori – Rita Levi Montalcini – Rientro dei Cervelli (2012) awarded by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research (MIUR). This investigation is supported by the NASA grants NNX12AO97G and NNX13AP20G. The work by G. Tosti is supported by the ASI/INAF contract I/005/12/0. H. A. Smith acknowledges partial support from NASA/JPL grant NNX14AJ61G. H. Otí-Floranes is funded by a postdoctoral UNAM grant. V. Chavushyan acknowledges funding by CONACyT research grant 151494 (México). We thank the staff at the Observatorio Astronómico Nacional in San Pedro Mártir (México) for all their help during the observation runs. We thank the staff of the Astronomical Observatory of Bologna in Loiano for their assistance during the observations. Part of this work is based on archival data, software or on-line services provided by the ASI Science Data Center. This research has made use of data obtained from the high-energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC) provided by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center; the SIMBAD database operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France; the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This publication makes use of data products from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which is a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This publication makes use of data products from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. Funding for SDSS-III has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. The SDSS-III web site is http://www.sdss3.org/. SDSS-III is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium for the Participating Institutions of the SDSS-III Collaboration including the University of Arizona, the Brazilian Participation Group, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Florida, the French Participation Group, the German Participation Group, Harvard University, the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, the Michigan State/Notre Dame/JINA Participation Group, Johns Hopkins University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, New Mexico State University, New York University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the Spanish Participation Group, University of Tokyo, University of Utah, Vanderbilt University, University of Virginia, University of Washington, and Yale University. This research has made use of the USNOFS Image and Catalogue Archive operated by the United States Naval Observatory, Flagstaff Station (http://www.nofs.navy.mil/data/fchpix/). TOPCATFootnote 2 (Taylor 2005) for the preparation and manipulation of the tabular data and the images. The Aladin Java appletFootnote 3 was used to create the finding charts reported in this paper (Bonnarel et al. 2000). It can be started from the CDS (Strasbourg – France), from the CFA (Harvard – USA), from the ADAC (Tokyo – Japan), from the IUCAA (Pune – India), from the UKADC (Cambridge – UK), or from the CADC (Victoria – Canada).
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Massaro, F., Álvarez Crespo, N., D’Abrusco, R. et al. The gamma-ray blazar quest: new optical spectra, state of art and future perspectives. Astrophys Space Sci 361, 337 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-016-2926-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10509-016-2926-6