Distinguishing RBL-like objects and XBL-like objects with the peak emission frequency of the overall energy spectrum

Abstract

We investigate quantitatively how the peak emission frequency of the overall energy spectrum is at work in distinguishing RBL-like and XBL-like objects. We employ the sample of Giommi et al. (1995) to study the distribution of BL Lacertae objects with various locations of the cutoff of the overall energy spectrum. We find that the sources with the cutoff located at lower frequency are indeed sited in the RBL region of the $α_{ro}-α_{ox}$ plane, while those with the cutoff located at higher frequency are distributed in the XBL region. For a more quantitative study, we employ the BL Lacertae samples presented by Sambruna et al. (1996), where, the peak emission frequency, $ν_p$, of each source is estimated by fitting the data with a parabolic function. In the plot of $α_{rx}-\log ν_p$ we find that, in the four different regions divided by the $α_{rx}=0.75$ line and the $\log ν_p=14.7$ line, all the RBL-like objects are inside the upper left region, while most XBL-like objects are within the lower right region. A few sources are located in the lower left region. No sources are in the upper right region. This result is rather quantitative. It provides an evidence supporting what Giommi et al. (1995) suggested: RBL-like and XBL-like objects can be distinguished by the difference of the peak emission frequency of the overall energy spectrum.