Stellar model tests and age determination for RGB stars from the APO-K2 catalogue

TL;DR

This study tests stellar models against APO-K2 RGB star observations, focusing on temperature biases and age estimates, revealing dependencies on metallicity, alpha-element enhancement, and stellar mass, with implications for stellar evolution understanding.

Contribution

It introduces an empirical alpha-element dependence in stellar models and analyzes its impact on temperature biases and age determinations for RGB stars.

Findings

Negligible temperature offset with metallicity.

Detected temperature difference related to alpha-enhancement.

Identified a 6% fraction of young stars possibly from mergers.

Abstract

By adopting the recently empirically derived dependence of $\alpha$-elements on $[\alpha/{\rm Fe}]$ instead of the conventionally applied uniform one, we tested the agreement between stellar model predictions and observations for red giant branch (RGB) stars in the APO-K2 catalogue. We particularly focused on the biases in effective temperature scales and on the robustness of age estimations. We computed a grid of stellar models relying on the empirical scaling of $\alpha$-elements, investigating the offset in effective temperature $\Delta T$ between these models and observations, using univariate analyses for both metallicity [Fe/H] and $[\alpha/{\rm Fe}]$. To account for potential confounding factors, we then employed a multivariate generalised additive model to study the dependence of $\Delta T$ on [Fe/H], $[\alpha/{\rm Fe}]$, $\log g$, and stellar mass. The initial analysis revealed a negligible trend of $\Delta T$ with [Fe/H], in contrast with previous works in the literature. A slight $\Delta T$ difference of 25 K was detected between stars with high and low $\alpha$-enhancement. Our multivariate analysis reveals a dependence of $\Delta T$ on both [Fe/H] and $[\alpha/{\rm Fe}]$, and highlights a significant dependence on stellar mass. This suggests a discrepancy in how effective temperature scales with stellar mass in the models compared to observations. Despite differences in assumed chemical composition, our analysis, through a fortunate cancellation effect, yields ages that are largely consistent with recent studies of the same sample. Notably, our analysis identifies a 6% fraction of stars younger than 4 Ga within the high-$\alpha$ population. However, our analysis of the [C/N] ratio supports the possible origin of the these stars as a result of mergers or mass transfer events.