2000/12/08 by E. S. Perlman, Eric S. Perlman, P. Padovani +18
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics (astro-ph) #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #Gyrotron and Vacuum Electronics Research #Particle Accelerators and Free-Electron Lasers #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.astro-ph/0012185
8 pages, 4 figures, to appear in "Blazar Demographics & Physics", ed. P. Padovani & C. M. Urry
arxiv created 2000/12/08 · openalex publication_date 2000/12/08 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The rareness of blazars, combined with the previous history of relatively shallow, single-band surveys, has dramatically colored our perception of these objects. Despite a quarter-century of research, it is not at all clear whether current samples can be combined to give us a relatively unbiased view of blazar properties, or whether they present a view so heavily affected by biases inherent in single-band surveys that a synthesis is impossible. We will use the coverage of X-ray/radio flux space for existing surveys to assess their biases. Only new, deeper blazar surveys approach the level needed in depth and coverage of parameter space to give us a less biased view of blazars. These surveys have drastically increased our knowledge of blazars' properties. We will specifically review the discovery of ``blue'' blazars, objects with broad emission lines but broadband spectral characteristics similar to HBL BL Lac objects.