A 4 Gyr M-dwarf Gyrochrone from CFHT/MegaPrime Monitoring of the Open Cluster M67

Abstract

We present stellar rotation periods for late K- and early M-dwarf members of the 4 Gyr old open cluster M67 as calibrators for gyrochronology and tests of stellar spin-down models. Using Gaia EDR3 astrometry for cluster membership and Pan-STARRS (PS1) photometry for binary identification, we build this set of rotation periods from a campaign of monitoring M67 with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope's MegaPrime wide field imager. We identify 1807 members of M67, of which 294 are candidate single members with significant rotation period detections. Moreover, we fit a polynomial to the period versus color-derived effective temperature sequence observed in our data. We find that the rotation of very cool dwarfs can be explained by a simple solid-body spin-down between 2.7 and 4 Gyr. We compare this rotational sequence to the predictions of gyrochronological models and find that the best match is Skumanich-like spin-down, P_rot \propto t^0.62, applied to the sequence of Ruprecht 147. This suggests that, for spectral types K7-M0 with near-solar metallicity, once a star resumes spinning down, a simple Skumanich-like is sufficient to describe their rotation evolution, at least through the age of M67. Additionally, for stars in the range M1-M3, our data show that spin-down must have resumed prior to the age of M67, in conflict with predictions of the latest spin-down models.

21 pages, 16 figures, Accepted for publication by ApJ

References in corpus (32)

• Array Programming with NumPy
• The generalised Lomb-Scargle periodogram. A new formalism for the floating-mean and Keplerian periodograms
• Improved Age Estimation for Solar-Type Dwarfs Using Activity-Rotation Diagnostics
• astroquery: An Astronomical Web-Querying Package in Python
• How to Constrain Your M Dwarf: measuring effective temperature, bolometric luminosity, mass, and radius
• Measuring the rotation period distribution of field M-dwarfs with Kepler
• Assessing statistical significance of periodogram peaks
• The Geneva-Copenhagen Survey of the Solar neighbourhood II. New uvby calibrations and rediscussion of stellar ages, the G dwarf problem, age-metallicity diagram, and heating mechanisms of the disk
• The H$\alpha$ emission of nearby M dwarfs and its relation to stellar rotation
• 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
• Improved angular momentum evolution model for solar-like stars II. Exploring the mass dependence
• Calibrating Gyrochronology using Kepler Asteroseismic targets
• The Solar Neighborhood XLV. The Stellar Multiplicity Rate of M Dwarfs Within 25 pc
• 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
• Impact on asteroseismic analyses of regular gaps in Kepler data
• Gap interpolation by inpainting methods : Application to Ground and Space-based Asteroseismic data
• Abundances of four open clusters from solar stars
• The chemical compositions of solar twins in the open cluster M67
• Metallicities for 13 nearby open clusters from high-resolution spectroscopy of dwarf and giant stars. Stellar metallicity, stellar mass, and giant planets
• The K2 M67 Study: Revisiting old friends with K2 reveals oscillating red giants in the open cluster M67
• Photospheric and chromospheric magnetic activity of seismic solar analogs. Observational inputs on the solar/stellar connection from Kepler and Hermes
• Wide binaries are rare in open clusters
• Revisiting the impact of stellar magnetic activity on the detectability of solar-like oscillations by Kepler
• Rotating Stars from Kepler Observed with Gaia DR1
• Photospheric activity of the Sun with VIRGO and GOLF: Comparison with standard activity proxies
• M Dwarf rotation from the $K2$ young clusters to the field. I. A Mass-Rotation Correlation at 10 Myr
• The influence of the environment on the spin evolution of low-mass stars. I. External photoevaporation of circumstellar disks
• High-cadence spectroscopy of M-dwarfs - II. Searching for stellar pulsations with HARPS
• Rotation of Kepler field dwarfs and sub giants: Spectroscopic $v\sin I$ from APOGEE
• M Dwarf Activity in the Pan-STARRS 1 Medium-Deep Survey: First Catalog and Rotation Periods

Cited by in corpus (10)

• The Empirical Limits of Gyrochronology
• The SPIRou Legacy Survey Rotation period of quiet M dwarfs from circular polarization in near-infrared spectral lines: I. The SPIRou APERO analysis
• The TIME Table: Rotation and Ages of Cool Exoplanet Host Stars
• Optical and near-infrared stellar activity characterization of the early M dwarf Gl~205 with SOPHIE and SPIRou
• New insights into the rotational evolution of near-solar age stars from the open cluster M67
• Kepler main-sequence solar-like stars: surface rotation and magnetic-activity evolution
• Wide binaries demonstrate the consistency of rotational evolution between open cluster and field stars
• Exoplanet Occurrence Rate with Age for FGK Stars in Kepler
• Three young planets around the K-dwarf K2-198: High-energy environment, evaporation history and expected future
• The SPIRou Legacy Survey: Detection of a nearby world orbiting in the habitable zone of Gl725B achieved by correcting strong telluric contamination in near-infrared radial velocities with WAPITI