Precise Ages of Field Stars from White Dwarf Companions in Gaia DR2
Abstract We analyze 4050 wide binary star systems involving a white dwarf (WD) and usually a main-sequence (MS) star, drawn from the large sample assembled by Tian et al. Using the modeling code BASE-9, we determine the system’s ages, the WD progenitors’ zero-age MS masses, the extinction values ( A...
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Published in | The Astrophysical journal. Supplement series Vol. 253; no. 2; p. 58 |
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Main Authors | , , , , , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Saskatoon
IOP Publishing
01.04.2021
|
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Abstract
We analyze 4050 wide binary star systems involving a white dwarf (WD) and usually a main-sequence (MS) star, drawn from the large sample assembled by Tian et al. Using the modeling code BASE-9, we determine the system’s ages, the WD progenitors’ zero-age MS masses, the extinction values (
A
V
), and the distance moduli. Discarding the cases with poor age convergences, we obtain ages for 3551 WDs, with a median age precision of
σ
τ
/
τ
= 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 coeval in a binary system, this provides precise age constraints on the usually low-mass MS companions, mostly inaccessible by any other means. |
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ISSN: | 0067-0049 1538-4365 |
DOI: | 10.3847/1538-4365/abe468 |