Precise Ages for Debris Disk Stars via Gyrochronology

Details Precise Ages for Debris Disk Stars via Gyrochronology Precise Ages for Debris Disk Stars via Gyrochronology

Mar 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008sptz.prop50465b&link_type=abstract

Spitzer Proposal ID #50465

Physics

Scientific paper

The Spitzer Space Telescope plays a leading role in identifying and investigating debris disks around nearby stars. This work will constitute one of its great scientific legacies. These debris disks are important because they probe analogs of our planetary system, and they could help understand the history of our own solar system. A key problem in assembling a picture of the evolution of these debris disk systems is that their ages are poorly known because sensitivity issues force us to work with field stars. There are two kinds of ages that are used: isochrone, and chromospheric. Isochrone ages for field stars have large errors (~100%), and furthermore, are biased oldward. Chromospheric ages, although better when available, still have errors ~50% and are also biased in certain ways, especially for F stars. As a result, not only is it not possible to identify possible breaks in the f_d vs. t relationship or the presence of individual events, but the decay relationship itself is known very poorly. We propose to use the new technique of gryochronology to refine the ages of a sample of ~50 field debris-disk host stars of solar-type. Gyrochronology, using a star's rotation period and color, allows the determination of the age of a field star to ~15-20%, a remarkable improvement in precision over the isochrone and chromospheric ages. The required rotation periods for the debris disk stars will be derived using an Automatic Photometric Telescope to measure the rotational modulation caused by transits of starspots. With accurate ages, we will be able to resolve LHB-like events if present, measure the decay relationship well, or indeed show that such a relationship does not generally hold.

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