2MASS observation of BL Lac objects

The 2MASS observations of known BL Lac objects are presented in this paper. The 2MASS associations for 511 BL Lac objects are identified. From the 2MASS near infrared two-color diagram it is seen that majority (about 70%) of objects are lying alone with or very close to the power law distribution implying that there is no need to invoke any significant radiation mechanism additional to a power law continuum for those sources. However, many sources (about 30%) are still located very close to the blackbody distribution indicative of the possible contributions from the host galaxies. In addition, the average spectral index derived for the near infrared region is 0.66 +/- 0.34 that is rather smaller than that from the previous results indicative of the possible influence from the host galaxies and/or from the lack or weakness of the radio emissions from most sources newly discovered by recent X-ray missions. (C) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.