Afterglows, redshifts, and properties of swift gamma-ray bursts

We present optical, near-IR, and radio follow-up of 16 Swift bursts, including our discovery of nine afterglows and a redshift determination for three. These observations, supplemented by data from the literature, provide an afterglow recovery rate of 52 in the optical/near-IR, much higher than in previous missions (BeppoSAX, HETE-2, INTEGRAL, and IPN). The optical/near-IR afterglows of Swift events are on average 1.8 mag fainter at t = 12 hr than those of previous missions. The X-ray afterglows are similarly fainter than those of pre-Swift bursts. In the radio the limiting factor is the VLA threshold, and the detection rate for Swift bursts is similar to that for past missions. The redshift distribution of pre-Swift bursts peaked at z a?? 1, whereas the six Swift bursts with measured redshifts are distributed evenly between 0.7 and 3.2. From these results we conclude that (1) the pre-Swift distributions were biased in favor of bright events and low-redshift events, (2) the higher sensitivity and accurate positions of Swift result in a better representation of the true burst redshift and brightness distributions (which are higher and dimmer, respectively), and (3) a??10 of the bursts are optically dark, as a result of a high redshift and/or dust extinction.