Name:	D'Abrusco, Raffaele
Email:	rdabrusco@cfa.harvard.edu
Institution:	Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Title:	Classifying the unknown high-energy sky with mid-Infrared data: the WISE view of gamma-ray blazars
Topic:	Extreme Sources
Abstract:	The importance of the WISE survey for the topic of the classification of active galactic nuclei cannot be overestimated considering the profound, significant impact on the observational characterization of family of sources that were not previously known for their mid-IR features. An example of WISE far-reaching and innovative influence in this field, is our discovery that blazars, one of the most elusive class of active galactic nuclei characterized by intense gamma-ray emission, show peculiar WISE colors that can be used to separate them from other sources. In this talk, I will summarize the results that my collaboration has obtained in the last three years about the WISE view of blazars. In particular, I will describe the method based on the model of the “locus”, the region of the three-dimensional WISE color space populated by gamma-ray emitting blazars and almost devoid of contaminants, for the association of the unidentified Fermi gamma-ray sources. I will also discuss other methods that, in addition to WISE photometry, take advantage of complementary multi-wavelength information, especially in the X-ray (SWIFT) and radio, to widen the pool of candidate blazars selected and minimize the contamination of the selection. Finally, I will present the results of our campaign of spectroscopic follow-ups of the candidate blazars selected with WISE that both validate the effectiveness of our methods and provide firm confirmation of several new gamma-ray blazars, and the impact of the newly discovered sources on the demography of known gamma-ray blazars population. Our project, based on the synergy of WISE with Fermi and other multi-wavelength data, will represent a significant contribution to the gamma-ray astronomy for years to come.