A Monte Carlo Method for Evaluating Empirical Gyrochronology Models and its Application to Wide Binary Benchmarks

Abstract

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, a relationship between stellar rotation and age, appears to offer a reliable age indicator for main sequence (MS) stars over the mass range of approximately 0.6 to 1.3 $M_{\odot }$. Those stars lose their angular momentum due to magnetic braking and as a result, their rotation speeds decrease with age. Although current gyrochronology relations are fairly well tested for young MS stars with masses greater than 1 $M_{\odot }$, primarily in young open clusters, insufficient tests exist for older and lower mass MS stars. Binary stars offer the potential to expand and fill in the range of ages and metallicity over which gyrochronology can be empirically tested. In this paper, we demonstrate a Monte Carlo approach to evaluate gyrochronology models using binary stars. As examples, we used five previously published wide binary pairs. We also demonstrate a Monte Carlo approach to assess the precision and accuracy of ages derived from each gyrochronology model. For the traditional Skumanich models, the age uncertainties are ${\sigma }_{age}$/$age$ = 15-20\% for stars with $B-V$ = 0.65, and ${\sigma }_{age}$/$age$ = 5-10\% for stars with $B-V$ = 1.5 and rotation period P $\le$ 20 days.

arXiv commentAccepted to ApJ

References in corpus (44)

• Gaia Data Release 2. Summary of the contents and survey properties
• Improved Age Estimation for Solar-Type Dwarfs Using Activity-Rotation Diagnostics
• The Pan-STARRS1 Photometric System
• Ages for illustrative field stars using gyrochronology: viability, limitations and errors
• Gaia Data Release 2: Photometric content and validation
• Rotation Periods of 34,030 Kepler Main-Sequence Stars: The Full Autocorrelation Sample
• On the rotational evolution of solar- and late-type stars, its magnetic origins, and the possibility of stellar gyrochronology
• The Ages of Stars
• A million binaries from Gaia eDR3: sample selection and validation of Gaia parallax uncertainties
• Weakened magnetic braking as the origin of anomalously rapid rotation in old field stars
• Improved angular momentum evolution model for solar-like stars
• On the use of Gaia magnitudes and new tables of bolometric corrections
• The Mass-Dependence of Angular Momentum Evolution in Sun-Like Stars
• A spin-down clock for cool stars from observations of a 2.5-billion-year-old cluster
• Rotation and magnetism of Kepler pulsating solar-like stars. Towards asteroseismically calibrated age-rotation relations
• The Kepler Cluster Study: Stellar Rotation in NGC6811
• Magnetic Braking Formulation for Sun-Like Stars: Dependence on Dipole Field Strength and Rotation Rate
• Fast Star, Slow Star; Old Star, Young Star: Subgiant Rotation as a Population and Stellar Physics Diagnostic
• Calibrating Gyrochronology using Kepler Asteroseismic targets
• The Coevality of Young Binary Systems
• Angular Momentum Loss from Cool Stars: An Empirical Expression and Connection to Stellar Activity
• Testing the recovery of stellar rotation signals from Kepler light curves using a blind hare-and-hounds exercise
• When Do Stalled Stars Resume Spinning Down? Advancing Gyrochronology with Ruprecht 147
• How Good a Clock is Rotation? The Stellar Rotation-Mass-Age Relationship for Old Field Stars
• K2 rotation periods for low-mass Hyads and a quantitative comparison of the distribution of slow rotators in the Hyades and Praesepe
• A Temporary Epoch of Stalled Spin-Down for Low-Mass Stars: Insights from NGC 6811 with Gaia and Kepler
• The Color-Period Diagram and Stellar Rotational Evolution - New Rotation Period Measurements in the Open Cluster M34
• Poking the Beehive From Space: K2 Rotation Periods For Praesepe
• Towards precise stellar ages: combining isochrone fitting with empirical gyrochronology
• On the competing effect of wind braking and interior coupling in the rotational evolution of solar-like stars
• Stellar rotation periods from K2 Campaigns 0-18 -- Evidence for rotation period bimodality and simultaneous variability decrease
• Rotation of Late-Type Stars in Praesepe with K2
• Forward Modeling of the Kepler Stellar Rotation Period Distribution: Interpreting Periods from Mixed and Biased Stellar Populations
• A New Look at an Old Cluster: The Membership, Rotation, and Magnetic Activity of Low-Mass Stars in the 1.3-Gyr-Old Open Cluster NGC 752
• The Metastable Dynamo Model of Stellar Rotational Evolution
• An assessment of the rotation rates of the host stars of extrasolar planets
• Rotational evolution of slow-rotators sequence stars
• Exploring the evolution of stellar rotation using Galactic kinematics
• Lithium depletion is a strong test of core-envelope recoupling
• Understanding the Limitations of Gyrochronology for Old Field Stars
• Reversals in the Direction of Polarization Rotation in OJ 287
• Evidence of a Sub-Saturn around EPIC~211945201
• On the Identification of Wide Binaries in the Kepler Field
• Rotation Periods of Wide Binaries in the Kepler Field

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Untangling the Galaxy. IV. Empirical Constraints on Angular Momentum Evolution and Gyrochronology for Young Stars in the Field
• The TIME Table: Rotation and Ages of Cool Exoplanet Host Stars
• Wide binaries demonstrate the consistency of rotational evolution between open cluster and field stars
• The breakdown of current gyrochronology as evidenced by old coeval stars