Estimating galactic dust extinction for medium band filters

Question

I have a set of medium-band filters and I would like to compute $A_{\lambda}/E(B-V)$ for each filter which are not reported in the literatures. The magnitudes of the objects in the photometry catalogue should be corrected for the galactic dust extinction using Cardelli et al. 1989 law.

Update

In appendix B of D.J. Schlegel, D.P. Finkbeiner, & M. Davis (1998, ApJ, 500, 525) estimating the $A_{\lambda}/E(B-V)$ for filters is obtained by using this equation $$ \Delta m_f=-2.5\frac{\int d\lambda W_f(\lambda)F(\lambda)10^{\frac{-A(\lambda)\Delta m_V}{2.5}}}{\int d\lambda W_f(\lambda)F(\lambda)} $$ $\Delta m_V$ is the reddening magnitude of an elliptical galaxies and $F(\lambda)$ is the flux of source and $W_f(\lambda)$ is the response function of a filter. I am wondering how I can use Cardelli et al. 1989 law to estimate these quantities for different filters or there is an alternative approach?

Answer 1

The quantity you want is basically the extinction law, and is usually called $k(\lambda)$. An extinction law is a fit to several measurements of the extinction $A_\lambda$ in some direction (or an average of several directions).

Cardelli et al. (1989) provides different functional forms for the mean extinction law, parametrized in their Eq. 1 as $$ \frac{A_\lambda}{A_V} = a(x) + \frac{b(x)}{R_V}, $$ where $x$ is the inverse wavelength in $\mu\mathrm{m}^{-1}$, and the coefficients are given separately for IR, optical, UV, and FUV in Eqs. 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively. The total-to-selective extinction $R_V\equiv A_V/E(B-V)$ takes different values for different lines of sight, but usually lies in the range 2.5 to 6, with 3.1 being a typical value in the Milky Way.

To get the quantity you're interested in, simply convert your favorite wavelength to $x$, stick into Eq. 1, and multiply by $R_V$: $$ k(\lambda) \equiv \frac{A_\lambda}{E(B-V)} = \frac{A_\lambda}{A_V} R_V. $$