Gas-to-dust ratios in GRB host galaxies

Abstract

An understanding of GRB host galaxy properties is pivotal to determining the progenitor stars, and is critical in identifying the effect of the GRB local environment on our observations. The imprint left by dust and gas absorption on GRB X-ray and optical afterglows provides an effective probe to the immediate surroundings, and for this well-sampled, multi-wavelength afterglow observations are imperative. Swift's capabilities to obtain simultaneous X-ray and UV/optical data make it ideal to study the dust and gas content in the local environment of GRBs. In these proceedings we further the work from [1], and present the results of analysis on the combined Swift and ground-based spectra of 24 GRB afterglows, which is the largest sample of GRB afterglow spectral energy distributions thus far studied.