An isotropic full-sky sample of optically selected blazars

Abstract

Context. Various high-energy phenomena in the Universe are associated with blazars, which are powerful active galaxies with jets pointing at the observer. Novel results relating blazars to high-energy neutrinos, cosmic rays, and even possible manifestations of new particle physics, often emerge from statistical analyses of blazar samples, and uniform sky coverage is important for many of these studies. Aims. Here, we construct a uniform full-sky catalog of blazars selected by their optical emission. Methods. We defined the criteria of isotropy, making a special effort to cover the Galactic plane region, and compiled an isotropic sample of blazars with Gaia optical magnitudes of G < 18m, corrected for Galactic absorption. The sources were taken from full-sky samples selected by parsec-scale radio emission or by high-energy gamma-ray flux, both of which are known to efficiently select blazar-like objects. Results. We present a catalog of 651 optically bright blazars, uniformly distributed in the sky, together with their radio, optical, X-ray, and gamma-ray fluxes, and an isotropic sample of 336 confirmed BL Lac type objects. Conclusions. This catalog may be used in future statistical studies of energetic neutrinos, cosmic rays, and gamma rays.