Dust attenuation in starburst galaxies determined by measuring the dependence of the optical color indices on galaxy inclination

We use optical color indices (colors) from the SDSS database to study the effect of dust in starburst galaxies by mea-suring the dependence of colors on galaxy inclination. Starburst galaxies with ongoing star formation, are rich with metals/dust and are, therefore, an excellent objects for studying the effect of dust in galaxies. They are selected using the [O III]λ 5007/Hα vs. [N II]λ 6584/Hβ diagram, that is, the BPT-diagram. We use Kauffmann's empirical demarcation line in the BPT-diagram to exclude galaxies with active galactic nuclei (AGN) from the sample because they have different physical and dust properties from normal galaxies. The sample is divided into bins according to galaxy stellar mass and 4000 A break (which is a coarse measure of a galaxy star formation history; SFH) and the reddening with inclination is studied as a function of these two physical parameters. Assuming that the dust effect is negligible in the SDSS z -band, we derive the attenuation curves for these galaxies. We fit the attenuation curves with a simple power law and use power law index to interpret the relative distribution of dust and stars in the starburst galaxies (© 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)