The discovery of new AGN candidates within the field of Fermi unassociated γ-ray sources

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, we report on the discovery of 26 new radio sources located within positional error range of unassociated γ-ray sources listed in the Fermi Large Area Telescope Second Source Catalog (2FGL catalog) by very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations. To search for new γ-ray AGN candidates, we conducted e-VLBI observations for 845 radio sources located in the field of 149 Fermi unassociated γ-ray sources at high galactic latitude, using the Japanese VLBI Network (JVN) at 8.4 GHz with a noise level of approximately 2 mJy. As a result of our JVN observations, we detected 29 VLBI sources having a brightness temperature of TB > 106 K within positional error of 28 γ-ray sources in the 2FGL catalog. These high brightness temperatures imply that the newly detected sources are possibly GeV γ-ray AGNs, such as most of 2FGL sources, which have already been classified as AGNs. Also, precise radio coordinates make it possible to identify the multiwavelength counterparts to the newly detected VLBI sources. Their color–color diagrams derived from Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer photometric data of these sources imply that eight out of all sources we detected would be classified as γ-ray blazars.