Towards precise ages for single stars in the field. Gyrochronology constraints at several Gyr using wide binaries. I. Ages for initial sample

Abstract

We present a program designed to obtain age-rotation measurements of solar-type dwarfs to be used in the calibration of gyrochronology relations at ages of several Gyr. This is a region of parameter space crucial for the large-scale study of the Milky Way, and where the only constraint available today is that provided by the Sun. Our program takes advantage of a set of wide binaries selected so that one component is an evolved star and the other is a main-sequence star of FGK type. In this way, we obtain the age of the system from the evolved star, while the rotational properties of the main sequence component provides the information relevant for gyrochronology regarding the spin-down of solar-type stars. By mining currently available catalogs of wide binaries, we assemble a sample of 37 pairs well positioned for our purposes: 19 with turnoff or subgiant primaries, and 18 with white dwarf components. Using high-resolution optical spectroscopy, we measure precise stellar parameters for a subset of 15 of the pairs with turnoff/subgiant components, and use these to derive isochronal ages for the corresponding systems. Ages for 16 of the 18 pairs with white dwarf components are taken from the literature. The ages of this initial sample of 31 wide binaries range from 1 to 9 Gyr, with precisions better than 20% for almost half of these systems. When combined with measurements of the rotation period of their main sequence components, these wide binary systems would potentially provide a similar number of points useful for the calibration of gyrochronology relations at very old ages.

58 pages, 7 figures, 7 tables; replaced with version accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (21)

• A grid of MARCS model atmospheres for late-type stars I. Methods and general properties
• New constraints on the chemical evolution of the solar neighbourhood and Galactic disc(s). Improved astrophysical parameters for the Geneva-Copenhagen Survey
• Basic physical parameters of a selected sample of evolved stars
• The Kepler Cluster Study: Stellar Rotation in NGC6811
• Fluxes in Hαand Ca II H and K for a sample of Southern stars
• New Distant Companions to Known Nearby Stars. II. Faint companions of Hipparcos stars and the frequency of wide binary systems
• Elemental abundance differences in the 16 Cygni binary system: a signature of gas giant planet formation?
• A VLT/NACO Survey for Triple and Quadruple Systems among Visual Pre-Main Sequence Binaries
• The Color-Period Diagram and Stellar Rotational Evolution - New Rotation Period Measurements in the Open Cluster M34
• Center-to-Limb Variation of Solar 3-D Hydrodynamical Simulations
• Two Disk Components from a Gas Rich Disk-Disk Merger
• Deep MMT Transit Survey of the Open Cluster M37 III: Stellar Rotation at 550 Myr
• The Monitor project: Rotation of low-mass stars in the open cluster M34
• New High Proper Motion Stars from the Digitized Sky Survey. IV. Completion of the Southern Survey and 170 Additional Stars with pm>0.45 arcsec/yr
• Time evolution of high-energy emissions of low-mass stars:I. Age determination using stellar chronology with white dwarfs in wide binaries
• MOST Spacebased Photometry of the Transiting Exoplanet System HD 209458: Transit Timing to Search for Additional Planets
• Candidate Disk Wide Binaries in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Transiting exoplanets from the CoRoT space mission XVII. The hot Jupiter CoRoT-17b: a very old planet
• Fundamental Parameters and Abundances of Metal-Poor Stars: The SDSS Standard BD +17 4708
• Analysis of the MOST light curve of the heavily spotted K2IV component of the single-line spectroscopic binary II Pegasi
• RACE-OC Project: Rotation and variability in the open cluster NGC2099 (M37)

Cited by in corpus (36)

• A million binaries from Gaia eDR3: sample selection and validation of Gaia parallax uncertainties
• Rotation and magnetism of Kepler pulsating solar-like stars. Towards asteroseismically calibrated age-rotation relations
• Oxygen Abundances in Nearby FGK Stars and the Galactic Chemical Evolution of the Local Disk and Halo
• The remarkable solar twin HIP 56948: a prime target in the quest for other Earths
• Rotation, differential rotation, and gyrochronology of active Kepler stars
• Comoving stars in Gaia DR1: An abundance of very wide separation co-moving pairs
• The Solar Twin Planet Search: The age - chromospheric activity relation
• 18 Sco: a solar twin rich in refractory and neutron-capture elements. Implications for chemical tagging
• Wide Binaries in Tycho-{\it Gaia}: Search Method and the Distribution of Orbital Separations
• Identical or fraternal twins? : The chemical homogeneity of wide binaries from Gaia DR2
• Chemical signatures of planets: beyond solar-twins
• Lithium abundance patterns of late-F stars: an in-depth analysis of the lithium desert
• The SUPERWIDE Catalog: A Catalog of 99,203 Wide Binaries Found in Gaia and Supplemented by the SUPERBLINK High Proper Motion Catalog
• Stellar Rotation in the Gaia Era: Revised Open Clusters Sequences
• Chemical Evolution in the Milky Way: Rotation-based ages for APOGEE-Kepler cool dwarf stars
• Binary Stars in the New Millennium
• Prospects for Galactic and stellar astrophysics with asteroseismology of giant stars in the $TESS$ Continuous Viewing Zones and beyond
• New and Known Moving Groups And Clusters Identified in a Gaia Co-Moving Catalog
• Using rotation, magnetic activity and lithium to estimate the ages of low mass stars
• Using APOGEE Wide Binaries to Test Chemical Tagging with Dwarf Stars
• Wide Binaries in Tycho-Gaia II: Metallicities, Abundances, and Prospects for Chemical Tagging
• Improved Constraints on the Initial-to-Final Mass Relation of White Dwarfs using Wide Binaries
• Spectroscopic orbits of nearby stars
• On the Identification of Wide Binaries in the Kepler Field
• Testing the Limits of Precise Subgiant Characterization with APOGEE and Gaia: Opening a Window to Unprecedented Astrophysical Studies
• Rotational and Radial Velocities of 1.3-2.2 M_Sun Red Giants in Open Clusters
• On the Iron Abundance Anomaly in K-dwarf and Hyades Stars
• Asteroseismology of Pulsating Stars
• A Distant Sample of Halo Wide Binaries from SDSS
• Bayesian isochrone fitting and stellar ages
• The M4 Core Project with HST --- I. Overview and First-Epoch
• The breakdown of current gyrochronology as evidenced by old coeval stars
• The HARPS search for southern extra-solar planets. XLVII. Five Jupiter-mass planets in long-period orbits, one highly irradiated Neptune, one brown dwarf, and five stellar binaries
• Not that simple: the metallicity dependence of the wide binary fraction changes with separation and stellar mass
• Characterization of very wide companion candidates to young stars with planets and disks
• PSF-based Analysis for Detecting Unresolved Wide Binaries