Blazar Compton Efficiencies

The Fermi gamma-ray space telescope has dramatically increased the number of gamma-ray blazars known and means that for the first time, a large sample of blazars selected by the strength of their inverse Compton emission exists. We have cross-identified the blazars listed in the first Fermi-LAT catalog (1FGL) with the CRATES radio catalogue. Using the 8.4 GHz flux density as a proxy for the jet power, we have computed their Compton efficiencies, a measure of the ability of the jet to convert the power in the ultrarelativistic jet electrons into gamma-rays through the inverse Compton process. We have compared the Compton efficiencies of the two blazar subsets, BL Lacs and FSRQs, and find no evidence that they are different. We also do not find an anti-correlation between Compton efficiency and synchrotron peak frequency.