The Optical -- Mid-infrared Extinction Law of the l=165 Sightline in the Galactic Plane: Diversity of Extinction Law in the Diffuse Interstellar Medium

TL;DR

This study investigates the variability of the optical to mid-infrared extinction law in a diffuse interstellar region, revealing significant diversity in the total-to-selective extinction ratio Rv, which challenges the assumption of a universal extinction law.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed measurement of the optical-mid-IR extinction law in a specific diffuse Galactic region, demonstrating the diversity of Rv values and questioning the universality of the standard extinction curve.

Findings

Rv ranges from 1.7 to 3.8 in the studied region

Mean Rv value is 2.8, close to the standard 3.1

No correlation between Rv and E(B-V) or AV/d

Abstract

Understanding the effects of dust extinction is important to properly interpret observations. The optical total-to-selective extinction ratio, Rv = Av/E(B-V), is widely used to describe extinction variations in ultraviolet and optical bands. Since the Rv=3.1 extinction curve adequately represents the average extinction law of diffuse regions in the Milky Way, it is commonly used to correct observational measurements along sightlines toward diffuse regions in the interstellar medium. However, the Rv value may vary even along different diffuse interstellar medium sightlines. In this paper, we investigate the optical--mid-infrared (mid-IR) extinction law toward a very diffuse region at l = 165 in the Galactic plane, which was selected based on a CO emission map. Adopting red clump stars as extinction tracers, we determine the optical-to-mid-IR extinction law for our diffuse region in the two APASS bands (B, V), the three XSTPS-GAC bands (g, r, i), the three 2MASS bands (J, H, Ks, and the two WISE bands (W1, W2). Specifically, 18 red clump stars were selected from the APOGEE--RC catalog based on spectroscopic data in order to explore the diversity of the extinction law. We find that the optical extinction curves exhibit appreciable diversity. The corresponding Rv ranges from 1.7 to 3.8, while the mean Rv value of 2.8 is consistent with the widely adopted average value of 3.1 for Galactic diffuse clouds. There is no apparent correlation between Rv value and color excess E(B-V) in the range of interest, from 0.2 to 0.6 mag, or with specific visual extinction per kiloparsec, AV/d.