Dusty MgII absorbers: population statistics, extinction curves and gamma-ray burst sightlines

Details Dusty MgII absorbers: population statistics, extinction curves and gamma-ray burst sightlines Dusty MgII absorbers: population statistics, extinction curves and gamma-ray burst sightlines

2011-06-03

arxiv.org/abs/1106.0692v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics

21 pages, 20 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Scientific paper

We present a new determination of the dust content and near-ultraviolet/optical extinction curves associated with a sample of ~8300 strong (equivalent width > 1A) Mg II absorbers, with redshifts 0.41A and 34+/-2 per cent for absorbers with EW>2A. Direct determination of the shape of the near-ultraviolet extinction curves for absorbers as a function of E(B-V) show evidence for systematic changes in the form of the extinction curves. At low E(B-V) (>0.05), the extinction curve is well represented by a Small Magellanic Cloud-like extinction curve. For intermediate E(B-V)s (<0.2), approximately a third of MgII absorbers show evidence for a 2175A feature similar to that of the Large Magellanic Cloud. For the small number of high E(B-V) (>0.3) absorbers, the majority of which exhibit strong CaII 3935,3970 absorption, there is evidence for a 2175A feature as strong as that found in the Milky Way. Application of the new results on the dust content of strong Mg II absorbers shows that dusty absorbers can account for a significant proportion, up to a factor of two, of the observed overdensity of absorbers seen towards Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) sightlines, compared to sightlines towards quasars in flux-limited samples. (Abridged)

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