Bibcode
DOI
Urry, C. Megan; Falomo, Renato; Scarpa, Riccardo; Pesce, Joseph E.; Treves, Aldo; Giavalisco, Mauro
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 512, Issue 1, pp. 88-99.
Advertised on:
2
1999
Journal
Citations
49
Refereed citations
43
Description
Six BL Lac objects from the complete 1 Jy radio-selected sample of 34
objects were observed in cycle 5 with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST)
Wide-Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) to an equivalent limiting flux of
mu_I~26 mag arcsec^-2. Here we report results for the second half of
this sample, as well as new results for the first three objects,
discussed previously by Falomo and coworkers. In addition, we have
analyzed in the same way HST images of three X-ray-selected BL Lac
objects observed by Jannuzi and coworkers. The ensemble of nine BL Lac
objects spans the redshift range from z=0.19 to ~1. Host galaxies are
clearly detected in seven cases, while the other two, at z~0.258
(redshift highly uncertain) and z=0.997, are not resolved. The HST
images make up a homogeneous data set with unprecedented morphological
information between a few tenths of an arcsecond and several arcseconds
from the nucleus, allowing us to rule out definitively a pure disk light
profile in six of the seven detected host galaxies. The host galaxies
are luminous ellipticals with an average absolute magnitude of M_I~-24.6
mag (with dispersion 0.7 mag), more than a magnitude brighter than L^*
and comparable to the brightest cluster galaxies. The morphologies are
generally smooth and have small ellipticities (ɛ<~0.2). Given
such roundness, there is no obvious alignment with the more linear radio
structures. In the six cases for which we have HST WFPC2 images in two
filters, the derived color profiles show no strong spatial gradients and
are as expected for K-corrected passively evolving elliptical galaxies.
The host galaxies of the radio-selected and X-ray-selected BL Lac
objects for this very limited sample are comparable in both morphology
and luminosity.