Gyrochronology Model Evaluation Method

Tomomi Otani, Ted von Hippel, Terry D. Oswalt, Alexander Stone-Martinez, Derek Buzasi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

<p> Accurate stellar ages are essential for our understanding of the star formation history of the Milky Way, Galactic chemical evolution, and to constrain exoplanet formation models. Gyrochronology, an empirical relationship between stellar rotation and age, appears to be a reliable age indicator for main sequence stars over the mass range 0.6 to 1.0 M. Under the assumption that wide binaries contain two coeval stars, we selected pairs from the Kepler, K2, and T ESS surveys in order to evaluate three Gyrochronology models (Barnes 2007; Angus et al. 2015; Mamajek &amp; Hillenbrand 2008). In this &filig;rst paper in a planned series, we describe a Monte Carlo approach to assess the precision and accuracy of age derived from these models. We use this technique to demonstrate that current gyrochronology models achieve &sim;25 % precision in ages when &sigma;P /P = 0.1 and &sigma;B&minus;V = 0.02. We also outline ways to improve this to &sim;10 %.</p>
Original languageAmerican English
JournalThe Astrophysical Journal
StatePublished - May 18 2021

Keywords

  • Gyrochronology
  • the Milky Way
  • stellar ages
  • Monte Carlo approach

Disciplines

  • Astrophysics and Astronomy
  • Stars, Interstellar Medium and the Galaxy

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