Precise Ages of Field Stars From White Dwarf Companions in Gaia DR2

Abstract

We analyze 4\,050 wide binary star systems involving a white dwarf (WD) and usually a main sequence (MS) star, drawn from the large sample assembled by \citet[][hereafter, T20]{Tian_2020}. Using the modeling code BASE-9, we determine the system's ages, the WD progenitors' ZAMS masses, the extinction values ($A_V$), and the distance moduli. Discarding the cases with poor age convergences, we obtain ages for 3\,551 WDs, with a median age precision of ${\sigma }_{\tau }/\tau =20$\%, and system ages typically in the range of 1-6 Gyr. We validated these ages against the very few known clusters and through cross-validation of 236 WD-WD binaries. Under the assumption that the components are co-eval in a binary system, this provides precise age constraints on the usually low-mass MS companions, mostly inaccessible by any other means.

15 pages, 10 figures, 4 tables, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• Gaia Data Release 3: Apsis II -- Stellar Parameters
• The 40 pc sample of white dwarfs from Gaia
• Constraining the solar neighbourhood age-metallicity relation from white dwarf-main sequence binaries
• Testing White Dwarf Age Estimates using Wide Double White Dwarf Binaries from Gaia EDR3
• Spectroscopy of TOI-1259B -- an unpolluted white dwarf companion to an inflated warm Saturn
• Improving white dwarfs as chronometers with Gaia parallaxes and spectroscopic metallicities