The Dust Extinction Curve: Beyond R(V)

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Green, Gregory M., Zhang, Xiangyu, Zhang, Ruoyi
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Green, Gregory M.
Zhang, Xiangyu
Zhang, Ruoyi
author_facet Green, Gregory M.
Zhang, Xiangyu
Zhang, Ruoyi
contents The dust extinction curve is typically parameterized by a single variable, R(V), in optical and near-infrared wavelengths. R(V) controls the slope of the extinction-vs.-wavelength curve, and is thought to reflect the grain-size distribution and composition of dust. Low-resolution, flux-calibrated BP/RP spectra from Gaia have allowed the determination of the extinction curve along sightlines to 130 million stars in the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds. We show that these extinction curves contain more than a single degree of freedom - that is, that they are not simply described by R(V). We identify a number of components that are orthogonal to R(V) variation, and show that these components vary across the sky in coherent patterns that resemble interstellar medium structure. These components encode variation in the 770 nm extinction feature, intermediate-scale and very broad structure, and a newly identified feature at 850 nm, and likely trace both dust composition and local conditions in the interstellar medium. Correlations of the 770 nm and 850 nm features with R(V) suggest that their carriers become more abundant as the carrier of the 2175 Angstrom feature is destroyed. Our 24 million extinction-curve decompositions and feature equivalent-width measurements are publicly available at https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14005028.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_22537
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Dust Extinction Curve: Beyond R(V)
Green, Gregory M.
Zhang, Xiangyu
Zhang, Ruoyi
Astrophysics of Galaxies
The dust extinction curve is typically parameterized by a single variable, R(V), in optical and near-infrared wavelengths. R(V) controls the slope of the extinction-vs.-wavelength curve, and is thought to reflect the grain-size distribution and composition of dust. Low-resolution, flux-calibrated BP/RP spectra from Gaia have allowed the determination of the extinction curve along sightlines to 130 million stars in the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds. We show that these extinction curves contain more than a single degree of freedom - that is, that they are not simply described by R(V). We identify a number of components that are orthogonal to R(V) variation, and show that these components vary across the sky in coherent patterns that resemble interstellar medium structure. These components encode variation in the 770 nm extinction feature, intermediate-scale and very broad structure, and a newly identified feature at 850 nm, and likely trace both dust composition and local conditions in the interstellar medium. Correlations of the 770 nm and 850 nm features with R(V) suggest that their carriers become more abundant as the carrier of the 2175 Angstrom feature is destroyed. Our 24 million extinction-curve decompositions and feature equivalent-width measurements are publicly available at https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14005028.
title The Dust Extinction Curve: Beyond R(V)
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.22537