Related papers: The Fermi blazars divide
The blazar zone in quasars is commonly assumed to be located inside the broad-line region at some hundreds of Schwartzschild radii from the central black hole. Now, the simultaneous Fermi/LAT and MAGIC observations of a strong flare in the…
We report on HET and Palomar 5 m spectroscopy of recently identified $\gamma$-ray blazars in the {\it Fermi} LAT Bright Source List. These data provide identifications for 10 newly discovered $\gamma$-ray flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQ)…
We use optical data from the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) and the Catalina Real-Time Transient Survey (CRTS) to study the variability of gamma-ray detected and non-detected objects in a large population of active galactic nuclei (AGN)…
The past 20 years have seen phenomenal progress in our understanding of BL Lac objects. They form part of the blazar class, which are radio-loud AGN whose relativistic jets are aligned along our line of sight. Several critical milestones…
Machine learning has emerged as a powerful tool in the field of gamma-ray astrophysics. The algorithms can distinguish between different source types, such as blazars and pulsars, and help uncover new insights into the high-energy universe.…
Blazars optical emission is generally dominated by relativistic jets, although the host galaxy, accretion disk and broad line region (BLR) may also contribute significantly. Disentangling their contributions has been challenging for years…
Blazars have traditionally been separated into two broad categories based upon their optical emission characteristics; BL Lacs, with faint or no emission lines, and flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) with prominent, broad emission lines.…
Multi-wavelength analyses of spectra of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) provide useful information on the physical processes in the accretion disk and jets of black holes. This, however, is limited to bright sources and may not represent the…
The Fermi and Swift satellites, together with ground based Cherenkov telescopes, has greatly improved our knowledge of blazars, namely Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars and BL Lac objects, since all but the most powerful emit most of their…
Flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) and BL Lacs are powerful jet producing active galactic nuclei associated with supermassive black holes accreting at high and low Eddington rates, respectively. Based on the Millennium Simulation, Gardner…
The \gamma-ray loud blazars (flat spectrum radio quasars--FSRQs and BL Lacertae objects-BLs) are very bright in the \gamma-ray bands, which is perhaps associated with a beaming effect. Therefore, one can expect that the \gamma-ray…
We propose a scenario where blazars are classified as flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs), BL Lacs, low synchrotron, or high synchrotron peaked objects according to a varying mix of the Doppler boosted radiation from the jet, the emission…
We present multiwavelength data for twelve blazars observed from 2008-2010 as part of an ongoing optical-infrared photometric monitoring project. Sources were selected to be bright, southern (dec < 20 deg) blazars observed by the Fermi…
We consider the 1.5 years Fermi Large Area Telescope light curves (E > 100 MeV) of the flat spectrum radio quasars 3C 454.3 and PKS 1510-089, which show high activity in this period of time. We characterise the duty cycle of the source by…
The parsec-scale radio properties of blazars detected by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have been investigated using observations with the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA). Comparisons between LAT…
We have investigated the optical spectral behavior of a large sample of Fermi blazars (40 FSRQs and 13 BL Lacs), and found two new universal optical spectral behaviors. In the low state the optical spectrum gradually becomes softer…
We have utilized the largest sample of $\gamma$-ray selected Fermi flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) ever used (519 sources) to construct the luminosity function and its evolution through the cosmic history. In addition to spanning large…
We compiled the radio, optical, and X-ray data of blazars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) database, and presented the distribution of luminosities and broad band spectral indices. The distribution of luminosities shows that the…
Many quasi-simultaneous optical observations of 17 blazars are obtained from previous papers published over the last 19 years in order to investigate the spectral slope variability and understand the radiation mechanism of blazars. The…
The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope with its main instrument on-board, the Large Area Telescope (LAT), opened a new era in the study of high-energy emission from Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). When combined with contemporaneous ground- and…