TY - JOUR
T1 - Low-resolution sodium D absorption is a bad proxy for extinction
AU - Poznanski, Dovi
AU - Ganeshalingam, Mohan
AU - Silverman, Jeffrey M.
AU - Filippenko, Alexei V.
PY - 2011/7
Y1 - 2011/7
N2 - Dust extinction is generally the least tractable systematic uncertainty in astronomy, and particularly in supernova science. Often in the past, studies have used the equivalent width of NaiD absorption measured from low-resolution spectra as proxies for extinction, based on tentative correlations that were drawn from limited data sets. We show here, based on 443 low-resolution spectra of 172 Type Ia supernovae for which we have measured the dust extinction as well as the equivalent width of NaiD, that the two barely correlate. We briefly examine the causes for this large scatter that effectively prevents one from inferring extinction using this method.
AB - Dust extinction is generally the least tractable systematic uncertainty in astronomy, and particularly in supernova science. Often in the past, studies have used the equivalent width of NaiD absorption measured from low-resolution spectra as proxies for extinction, based on tentative correlations that were drawn from limited data sets. We show here, based on 443 low-resolution spectra of 172 Type Ia supernovae for which we have measured the dust extinction as well as the equivalent width of NaiD, that the two barely correlate. We briefly examine the causes for this large scatter that effectively prevents one from inferring extinction using this method.
KW - Dust, extinction
KW - Galaxies: ISM
KW - Supernovae: general
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=80053583822&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/j.1745-3933.2011.01084.x
DO - 10.1111/j.1745-3933.2011.01084.x
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AN - SCOPUS:80053583822
SN - 1745-3933
VL - 415
SP - L81-L84
JO - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
JF - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
IS - 1
ER -