Signatures of Extragalactic Dust in Pre-Swift GRB Afterglows

We present the results of a systematic analysis of gamma-ray burst afterglow spectral energy distributions (SEDs) in the optical/near-infrared bands. Our input list includes the entire world sample of afterglows observed in the pre-Swift era by the end of 2004 that have sufficient publicly available data. We apply various dust extinction models to fit the observed SEDs (Milky Way, Large Magellanic Cloud, and Small Magellanic Cloud) and derive the corresponding intrinsic extinction in the GRB host galaxies and the intrinsic spectral slopes of the afterglows. We then use these results to explore the parameter space of the power-law index of the electron distribution function and to derive the absolute magnitudes of the unextinguished afterglows.

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