Dust Attenuation in UV-selected Starbursts at High Redshift and their
  Local Counterparts: Implications for the Cosmic Star Formation Rate Density
  We present a new analysis of the dust obscuration in starburst galaxies at
low and high redshift. This study is motivated by our unique sample of the most
extreme UV-selected starburst galaxies in the nearby universe (z<0.3), found to
be good analogs of high-redshift Lyman Break Galaxies (LBGs) in most of their
physical properties. We find that the dust properties of the Lyman Break
Analogs (LBAs) are consistent with the relation derived previously by Meurer et
al. (M99) that is commonly used to dust-correct star formation rate
measurements at a very wide range of redshifts. We directly compare our results
with high redshift samples (LBGs, BzK, and sub-mm galaxies at z=2-3) having IR
data either from Spitzer or Herschel. The attenuation in typical LBGs at z=2-3
and LBAs is very similar. Because LBAs are much better analogs to LBGs compared
to previous local star-forming samples, including M99, the practice of
dust-correcting the SFRs of high redshift galaxies based on the local
calibration is now placed on a much more solid ground. We illustrate the
importance of this result by showing how the locally calibrated relation
between UV measurements and extinction is used to estimate the integrated,
dust-corrected star formation rate density at z=2-6.
