Related papers: Quantitative evaluation of the hypothesis that BL …
We discuss radio observations of a sample of radio-weak and radio-intermediate quasars which demonstrate that - just like their radio-loud counterparts - radio-weak quasars too have relativistic jets in their nuclei. Moreover, a VLA survey…
The parsec-scale total intensity structures of BL Lac objects share many characteristics with quasars: e.g. well-collimated jets and superluminal motion. However, the jets of BL Lac objects appear to fade much more quickly than those in…
When a radio jet is partially optically thick in the launching region, its apparent compact core may display frequency-dependent positional shifts. High-precision astrometric measurements of core shifts enable astronomers to pinpoint the…
BL Lacertae (Lac) objects that are detected at very-high energies (VHE) are of fundamental importance to study multiple astrophysical processes, including the physics of jets, the properties of the extragalactic background light and the…
This talk focuses on the statistical properties of X-ray selected BL Lacertae objects (XBLs) whose catalogue has been compiled. It consists of 312 sources from different X-ray surveys, unambiguously identified to mid-2010. Results of the…
The HST snapshot imaging survey of 110 BL Lac objects (Urry et al. 2000) has clearly shown that the host galaxies are massive and luminous ellipticals. The dispersion of the absolute magnitudes is sufficiently small, so that the measurement…
We aim to illustrate the potentiality of the Advanced Large, Homogeneous Area, Medium-Band Redshift Astronomical (ALHAMBRA) survey to investigate the high redshift universe through the detection of quasi stellar objects (QSOs) at redshifts…
We present optical images and spectroscopy for a dozen of BL Lac objects. Most of these objects were not previously studied and we give for the first time the properties of their host galaxies. The properties of the new host galaxies are…
We review the reports of possible year-long quasi-periodicities of BL Lac objects in the $\gamma$-ray and optical bands, and present a homogeneous time analysis of the light curves of PKS2155$-$304, PG1553+113, and BL Lac. Based on results…
The uncharted territory of the high-redshift ($z\gtrsim3$) Universe holds the key to understand the evolution of quasars. In an attempt to identify the most extreme members of the quasar population, i.e., blazars, we have carried out a…
Large-scale surveys over the last years have revealed about 300 QSOs at redshift above 6. Follow-up observations identified surprising properties, such as the very high black hole (BH) masses, spatial correlations with surrounding cold gas…
Recently, it was suggested that large concentrations or groups of quasars may trace sites of enhanced matter density at medium and high redshifts analogous to how galaxy clusters trace them in nearby space. We have checked existing quasar…
Based on recently reported results, we present arguments that sign changes in proper acceleration of test particles on the symmetry axis and close to the r=2M surface of quasi-spherical objects - related to the quadrupole moment of the…
We report the time series analysis of TESS light curves of three blazars, BL Lacertae, 1RXS J111741.0+254858, and 1RXS J004519.6+212735, obtained using a customized approach for extracting AGN light curves. We find tentative evidence for…
Observations of the gamma-ray sky with Fermi led to significant advances towards understanding blazars, the most extreme class of Active Galactic Nuclei. A large fraction of the population detected by Fermi is formed by BL Lacertae (BL Lac)…
Due to the impressive amount of new data provided by the RXTE satellite in the past decade, our knowledge of the phenomenology of accretion onto black holes has increased considerably. In particular, it has been possible to schematize the…
A small subset of optically selected radio-quiet quasars showing weak or no emission lines may turn out to be the elusive radio-quiet BL Lac objects, or simply be radio-quiet QSOs with a still-forming/shielded broad line region (BLR). High…
Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) can power relativistic jets, which are called blazars when pointed close to our line of sight. Depending on the presence or absence of emission lines in their optical spectra, blazars are categorized into flat…
Two new samples of QSOs have been constructed from recent surveys to test the hypothesis that the redshift distribution of bright QSOs is periodic in $\log(1+z)$. The first of these comprises 57 different redshifts among all known close…
Quasars have reigned as the most luminous and distant objects in the Universe. These concepts were based on the hypothesis that the redshifts of quasars are obeying the Hubble low. This hypothesis has little serious competition today, but…