Stellar Age Estimation from ~3 Myr to ~3 Gyr

TL;DR

This paper reviews methods for estimating stellar ages from 3 million to 3 billion years using various indicators, focusing on solar-mass stars, and discusses error sources and applications to debris disk evolution.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of recent progress in stellar age estimation techniques and analyzes their accuracy and applicability for young to middle-aged stars.

Findings

Quantitative age estimation methods have varying accuracy.

Systematic and random errors significantly affect age estimates.

Application to debris disk evolution enhances understanding of planetary system development.

Abstract

We present recent progress on quantitative estimation of stellar ages using ind icators such as theoretical evolutionary tracks, rotation, rotation-driven chrom ospheric and coronal activity, and lithium depletion. Our focus is on roughly so lar-mass and solar-metallicity stars younger than the Sun. We attempt to charac terize the systematic and random error sources and then derive "best" ages alo ng with the dispersion in age arising among the various age estimation methods. Our main application of these techniques is to the evolution of debris disks.