The broad band X-ray spectra of intermediate BL Lac objects

Abstract

We present recent X-ray observations of intermediate BL Lac objects (IBLs), i.e. BL Lacs which are located between high-energy and low-energy peaked BL Lac objects with respect to alpha_rx. We briefly discuss the statistical properties of IBLs from the RGB sample and then focus on a detailed broad band spectral analysis of two objects, namely 1424+2401 and 1055+5644, which were observed with ASCA and SAX, respectively. In both cases the spectra are steep and we find significant curvature in 1424+2401 in the sense that the spectrum gets flatter at both low (< 1 keV) and high energies (> 5 keV). Our results are in line with the hypothesis of a continuous distribution of synchrotron peak frequencies among BL Lac objects.

4 pages, incl. 6 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the 32nd COSPAR Scientific Assembly, Section E1.1, Nagoya, Japan, July 13-15 1998, Adv. in Space Research