The dust extinction curves of gamma-ray burst host galaxies

The composition and amount of interstellar dust within gamma-ray burst (GRB) host galaxies is of key importance when addressing selection effects in the GRB redshift distribution, and when studying the properties of their host galaxies. As well as the implications for GRB research, probing the dust within the high-z hosts of GRBs also contributes to our understanding of the conditions of the interstellar medium and star-formation in the distant Universe. Nevertheless, the physical properties of dust within GRB host galaxies continues to be a highly contended issue. In this paper we explore the mean extinction properties of dust within the host galaxies of a sample of 17 GRBs with total host galaxy visual extinction A(V) = 0.4), covering a redshift range z = 0.7-3.1. We find the average host extinction curve to have an ultraviolet slope comparable to that of the LMC, but with little evidence of a 2175 angstrom dust extinction feature as observed along Milky Way and LMC sightlines. We cannot at present rule out the presence of a 2175 angstrom feature, and both the standard SMC and LMC extinction curves also provide good fits to our data. However, we can reject an extinction curve that has a UV slope as flat as the mean Milky Way extinction curve, whilst also having a 2175 angstrom feature as prominent as seen in the mean Milky Way extinction curve. This is in contrast to the clear detection of a 2175 angstrom bump and the flatter extinction curves of some more heavily extinguished GRBs (A(V) > 1), which may be indicative of there being a dependence between dust abundance and the wavelength dependence of dust extinction, as has been previously speculated