How accurately can we age-date solar-type dwarfs using activity/rotation diagnostics?

TL;DR

This paper reviews how well activity and rotation diagnostics can be used to accurately estimate the ages of solar-type main sequence stars, emphasizing recent empirical calibrations and relations.

Contribution

It summarizes recent improvements in gyrochronology and activity diagnostics relations for F7-K2V stars, enabling better age estimations from observational data.

Findings

Improved gyrochronology calibration for age estimation.

Enhanced relations between chromospheric/X-ray activity and rotation.

Predicted activity isochrones as functions of color and age.

Abstract

It is well established that activity and rotation diminishes during the life of sun-like main sequence (~F7-K2V) stars. Indeed, the evolution of rotation and activity among these stars appears to be so deterministic that their rotation/activity diagnostics are often utilized as estimators of stellar age. A primary motivation for the recent interest in improving the ages of solar-type field dwarfs is in understanding the evolution of debris disks and planetary systems. Reliable isochronal age-dating for field, solar-type main sequence stars is very difficult given the observational uncertainties and multi-Gyr timescales for significant structural evolution. Observationally, significant databases of activity/rotation diagnostics exist for field solar-type field dwarfs (mainly from chromospheric and X-ray activity surveys). But how well can we empirically age-date solar-type field stars using activity/rotation diagnostics? Here I summarize some recent results for F7-K2 dwarfs from an analysis by Mamajek & Hillenbrand (2008), including an improved "gyrochronology" [Period(color, age)] calibration, improved chromospheric (R'_HK and X-ray (log Lx/Lbol) activity vs. rotation (via Rossby number) relations, and a chromospheric vs. X-ray activity relation that spans four orders of magnitude in log Lx/Lbol. Combining these relations, one can produce predicted chromospheric and X-ray activity isochrones as a function of color and age for solar type dwarfs.