The fraction of BL Lac objects in groups of galaxies
  Context: BL Lac objects are a rare class of active galactic nuclei that
typically show featureless optical spectra that make it difficult to estimate
the redshift. A novel method for estimating the redshift of BL Lac objects has
recently been proposed which assumes that these objects typically reside in
groups of galaxies.
  Aims: The aim of this work is to estimate the fraction of BL Lac objects that
reside in groups of galaxies.
  Methods: We use a sample of groups (M12 catalogue) selected by applying a
friends-of-friends algorithm in the SDSS DR12. Galaxies in the M12 sample were
cross-correlated with the sample of blazars in the BZCAT.
  Results: We found that 121 galaxies in the M12 catalogue are blazars in the
BZCAT sample, all but one are BL Lac objects, and a large fraction are
classified as BL Lac-galaxy dominated. Analysing the fraction of galaxies in
groups as a function of redshift we have estimated a correction factor that
takes into account the typical incompleteness of the catalogues based on the
friends-of-friends algorithm. Once this factor was applied to the sample of BL
Lac objects with a counterpart in the M12 catalogue, we found that the
percentage of BL Lac objects in groups is $\gtrsim 67 \pm 8\%$.
  Conclusions: The high rate of BL Lac objects in groups found in this work
strongly supports a recent method that has successfully estimated the redshift
of BL Lac objects with featureless spectra.
