Emission from the nucleus of the closest radio galaxy, Centaurus A, is
observed from the radio to the gamma ray band. We build, for the first time,
its overall Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) that appears to be intriguingly
similar to those of blazars, showing two broad peaks located in the
far-infrared band and at ~0.1 MeV respectively. The whole nuclear emission of
Centaurus A is successfully reproduced with a synchrotron self-Compton model.
The estimated physical parameters of the emitting source are similar to those
of BL Lacs, except for a much smaller beaming factor, as qualitatively expected
when a relativistic jet is orientated at a large angle to the line of sight.
These results represent strong evidence that Centaurus A is indeed a
misoriented BL Lac and provide strong support in favour of the unification
scheme for low luminosity radio-loud AGNs. Modeling of the SED of Centaurus A
also provides further and independent indications of the presence of velocity
structures in sub-pc scale jets.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS, pink page
