Related papers: Are BL Lacertae Objects Beamed QSO Remnants?
We present the first deep VLA radio images of flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQ) with multiwavelength emission properties similar to those of BL Lacs with synchrotron X-rays. Our observations of twenty-five of these sources show that their…
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…
BL Lac objects are an elusive and rare class of active galactic nuclei. For years their evolutionary behavior has appeared inconsistent with the trend observed in the population of AGN at large. The so-called ``negative'' evolution implies…
Quasars (Quasi Stellar Objects, abbreviated as QSOs) are still nowadays, close to half a century after their discovery, objects which are not completel y understood. In this brief review a description of the pending problems,…
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…
We discuss the features that mark the Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars from the BL Lacertae objects. We propose that FSRQs exceeding L = 10^{46} erg/s are powered by black hole accreting at rates dm/dt = 1 - 10; their power is dominated by the…
Surveys have shown radio-loud (RL) quasars constitute 10%-15% of the total quasar population and rest are radio-quiet (RQ). However, it is unknown if this radio-loud fraction (RLF) remains consistent among different parameter spaces. This…
Aims: We present optical spectroscopy of a sample of BL Lac objects, to determine their redshift, to study their broad emission line properties and to characterize their close environment. Methods: Twelve objects were observed using the ESO…
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…
We present deep radio images at 1.4 GHz of a large and complete sample of BL Lacertae objects (BL Lacs) selected from the Deep X-ray Radio Blazar Survey (DXRBS). We have observed 24 northern sources with the Very Large Array (VLA) in both…
We present new optical and near-IR spectroscopy as well as new high dynamic range, arcsecond-resolution VLA radio maps of BL Lacs from the complete radio-selected "1 Jansky" (1Jy) sample (RBLs) for which such data were not previously…
Many blazars detected by the Fermi satellite, observed spectroscopically in the optical, are line-less, and have been classified as BL Lac objects. Optical-UV photometry of nearly one hundred of them allowed to determine the redshift for a…
The existence of "radio weak BL Lac objects" (RWBLs) has been an open question, still unsolved, since the discovery that quasars could be radio-quiet or radio-loud. Recently several groups identified RWBL candidates, mostly found while…
We present a large sample of 501 radio-selected BL Lac candidates from the combination of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 5 optical spectroscopy and from the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters (FIRST) radio…
The most elusive and extreme sub-class of active galactic nuclei (AGNs), known as BL Lac objects, shows features that can only be explained as the result of relativistic effects occurring in jets pointing at a small angle with respect to…
The BL Lac population is set apart from the rest of the active galactic nuclei by a number of peculiar features, including remarkably little signs of cosmological evolution. We focus on this feature, and take hint from the observations to…
Radio-bright BL Lacertae objects (BLOs) are typically variable and exhibit prominent flaring. We use a sample of 24 BLOs to get a clear idea of their flaring behavior and to find possible commonalities in their variability patterns. Our…
The concept of the evolutionary sequence of jetted active galactic nuclei (AGNs) has been challenged in the last few decades since AGN subclasses are considered to be different due to their viewing angle. In this paper, we collected a…
BL Lacertae objects are extreme extragalactic sources characterized by the emission of strong and rapidly variable nonthermal radiation over the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Synchrotron emission followed by inverse Compton scattering in…
We use statistical results from a large sample of about 500 blazars, based on two surveys, the Deep X-ray Radio Blazar Survey (DXRBS), nearly complete, and the RASS-Green Bank survey (RGB), to provide new constraints on the spectral energy…