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Red giant masses and ages derived from carbon and nitrogen abundances
- Source :
- Martig, M, Fouesneau, M, Rix, H-W, Ness, M, Meszaros, S, Garcia-Hernandez, D A, Pinsonneault, M, Serenelli, A, Silva Aguirre, V & Zamora, O 2016, ' Red giant masses and ages derived from carbon and nitrogen abundances ', Royal Astronomical Society. Monthly Notices, vol. 456, no. 4, pp. 3655-3670 . https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv2830
- Publisher :
- Oxford University Press
-
Abstract
- We show that the masses of red giant stars can be well predicted from their photospheric carbon and nitrogen abundances, in conjunction with their spectroscopic stellar labels log g, Teff, and [Fe/H]. This is qualitatively expected from mass-dependent post main sequence evolution. We here establish an empirical relation between these quantities by drawing on 1,475 red giants with asteroseismic mass estimates from Kepler that also have spectroscopic labels from APOGEE DR12. We assess the accuracy of our model, and find that it predicts stellar masses with fractional r.m.s. errors of about 14% (typically 0.2 Msun). From these masses, we derive ages with r.m.s errors of 40%. This empirical model allows us for the first time to make age determinations (in the range 1-13 Gyr) for vast numbers of giant stars across the Galaxy. We apply our model to 52,000 stars in APOGEE DR12, for which no direct mass and age information was previously available. We find that these estimates highlight the vertical age structure of the Milky Way disk, and that the relation of age with [alpha/M] and metallicity is broadly consistent with established expectations based on detailed studies of the solar neighbourhood.<br />18 pages, 15 figures. Re-submitted to MNRAS after taking into account comments from the referee. Catalogue of masses and ages for giants in APOGEE DR12 will be made available once the paper is accepted
- Subjects :
- Red giant
Metallicity
Milky Way
FOS: Physical sciences
Astrophysics
Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics
01 natural sciences
Observatory
0103 physical sciences
Astrophysics::Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
010303 astronomy & astrophysics
Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics
QC
QB
Physics
010308 nuclear & particles physics
Conjunction (astronomy)
Astronomy
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Giant star
Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
Galaxy
Stars
Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
13. Climate action
Space and Planetary Science
Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
Astrophysics::Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00358711
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Martig, M, Fouesneau, M, Rix, H-W, Ness, M, Meszaros, S, Garcia-Hernandez, D A, Pinsonneault, M, Serenelli, A, Silva Aguirre, V & Zamora, O 2016, ' Red giant masses and ages derived from carbon and nitrogen abundances ', Royal Astronomical Society. Monthly Notices, vol. 456, no. 4, pp. 3655-3670 . https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stv2830
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....834903896b277c201ff7d48194176b0b