On Dust Extinction of Gamma-ray Burst Host Galaxies

Abstract

Although it is well recognized that gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows are obscured and reddened by dust in their host galaxies, the wavelength-dependence and quantity of dust extinction are still poorly known. Current studies on this mostly rely on fitting the afterglow spectral energy distributions (SEDs) with template extinction models. The inferred extinction (both quantity and wavelength-dependence) and dust-to-gas ratios are often in disagreement with that obtained from dust depletion and X-ray spectroscopy studies. We argue that this discrepancy could result from the prior assumption of a template extinction law. We propose an analytical formula to approximate the GRB host extinction law. With the template extinction laws self-contained, and the capability of revealing extinction laws differing from the conventional ones, it is shown that this is a powerful approach in modeling the afterglow SEDs to derive GRB host extinction.

9 pages, 4 figures; The Astrophysical Journal, in press (2008 Oct 1 issue)

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Cited by in corpus (31)

• The Afterglows of Swift-era Gamma-Ray Bursts. I. Comparing pre-Swift and Swift era Long/Soft (Type II) GRB Optical Afterglows
• The Host Galaxies of Swift Dark Gamma-Ray Bursts: Observational Constraints on Highly Obscured and Very High-Redshift GRBs
• The extinction law at high redshift and its implications
• Evidence for Supernova-Synthesised Dust from the Rising Afterglow of GRB 071025 at z~5
• Monster in the Dark: The Ultraluminous GRB 080607 and its Dusty Environment
• The mysterious optical afterglow spectrum of GRB140506A at z=0.889
• Evolution of dust extinction curves in galaxy simulation
• Dust attenuation evolution in $z\sim 2$-$12$ JWST galaxies
• Dust attenuation law in JWST galaxies at z = 7-8
• VLT/X-shooter GRBs: Individual extinction curves of star-forming regions
• Probing high-redshift galaxies with Ly$\alpha$ intensity mapping
• Probing Cosmic Dust of the Early Universe through High-Redshift Gamma-Ray Bursts
• Is GRB 050904 at z=6.3 absorbed by dust?
• Statistical studies of optically dark gamma-ray bursts in the Swift era
• Dust evolution processes constrained by extinction curves in nearby galaxies
• The dust attenuation law in $z\sim 6$ quasars
• Detection of the 2175Å UV Bump at z>7: Evidence for Rapid Dust Evolution in a Merging Reionisation-Era Galaxy
• Are the Formation and Abundances of Metal-Poor Stars the Result of Dust Dynamics?
• Learning the Universe: Cosmological and Astrophysical Parameter Inference with Galaxy Luminosity Functions and Colours
• The nature of Long-GRB host galaxies from chemical abundances
• Gamma-ray burst afterglows : luminosity clustering at infrared wavelengths?
• GRB 100614A and GRB 100615A: two extremely dark GRBs
• Dust in the Local Group
• An unusual transient following the short GRB 071227
• Explanations for the two-component spectral energy distributions of gravitationally lensed stars at high redshifts
• A simple model of dust extinction in gamma-ray burst host galaxies
• A two-component jet model for the optical plateau in the afterglow of GRB 191221B
• Flexible Simulation Based Inference for Galaxy Photometric Fitting with Synthesizer
• Modelling extragalactic extinction through gamma-ray burst afterglows
• Constraining the Metallicities of Damped Ly$\alpha$ Systems Using Extinction Curves
• Resolving dust and Lyα emission in a lensed galaxy at the epoch of reionization with JWST/CANUCS