Reddening and Extinction Toward the Galactic Bulge from OGLE-III: The
  Inner Milky Way's Rv ~ 2.5 Extinction Curve
  We combine VI photometry from OGLE-III with VVV and 2MASS measurements of
E(J-K_{s}) to resolve the longstanding problem of the non-standard optical
extinction toward the Galactic bulge. We show that the extinction is well-fit
by the relation A_{I} = 0.7465*E(V-I) + 1.3700*E(J-K_{s}), or, equivalently,
A_{I} = 1.217*E(V-I)(1+1.126*(E(J-K_{s})/E(V-I)-0.3433)). The optical and
near-IR reddening law toward the inner Galaxy approximately follows an R_{V}
\approx 2.5 extinction curve with a dispersion {\sigma}_{R_{V}} \approx 0.2,
consistent with extragalactic investigations of the hosts of type Ia SNe.
Differential reddening is shown to be significant on scales as small as as our
mean field size of 6', with the 1{\sigma} dispersion in reddening averaging 9%
of total reddening for our fields. The intrinsic luminosity parameters of the
Galactic bulge red clump (RC) are derived to be (M_{I,RC}, \sigma_{I,RC,0},
(V-I)_{RC,0}, \sigma_{(V-I)_{RC}}, (J-K_{s})_{RC,0}) = (-0.12, 0.09, 1.06,
0.121, 0.66). Our measurements of the RC brightness, brightness dispersion and
number counts allow us to estimate several Galactic bulge structural
parameters. We estimate a distance to the Galactic center of 8.20 kpc,
resolving previous discrepancies in distance determinations to the bulge based
on I-band observations. We measure an upper bound on the tilt {\alpha} \approx
40{\deg}. between the bar's major axis and the Sun-Galactic center line of
sight, though our brightness peaks are consistent with predictions of an N-body
model oriented at {\alpha} \approx 25{\deg}. The number of RC stars suggests a
total stellar mass for the Galactic bulge of 2.0*10^{10} M_{\odot}, if one
assumes a Salpeter IMF.
