Attempting an accurate age estimate of the open cluster NGC 6633 using CoRoT and Gaia

TL;DR

This study combines asteroseismology, Gaia, and CoRoT data to precisely determine the age of open cluster NGC 6633, while constraining stellar interior mixing and rotational effects.

Contribution

It provides the most accurate and self-consistent age estimate for NGC 6633 by integrating asteroseismic data with stellar models and constraining internal mixing effects.

Findings

Age of NGC 6633 is 0.55 Gyr with uncertainties.

Interior mixing in giant stars is constrained to low levels.

Rotation has minimal impact on stellar evolution in this cluster.

Abstract

Asteroseismology of solar-like oscillations in giant stars allow the derivation of their masses and radii. For members of open clusters, this provides an age of the cluster that should be identical to the one derived from the colour-magnitude diagram, but independent of the uncertainties that are present for that type of analysis. We aim to identify and measure the properties of giant members of the open cluster NGC6633, and combine these with asteroseismic measurements to derive a precise and self-consistent cluster age. Importantly, we wish to constrain the effects of rotational mixing on stellar evolution, since assumptions about internal mixing can have a significant impact on stellar age estimates. We identify five giant members of NGC6633 using photometry and Gaia data, supplemented by spectroscopic literature measurements. These are combined with asteroseismic measurements from CoRoT data and compared to stellar-model isochrones. This constrains the interior mixing to a low level and enables the most precise, accurate and self-consistent age estimate so far for this cluster. Asteroseismology of the giants and the cluster colour-magnitude diagram provide self-consistent masses of the giant members and their radii constrain the stellar interior mixing to a low level. The [C/N] ratios and Li abundances also suggest that rotation has had very little influence on the evolution of the stars in NGC 6633. This results in an age estimate of 0.55+0.05-0.10 Gyr for NGC6633. Four giant members appear to be in the helium-core burning evolutionary phase as also expected from evolutionary timescales. For the largest giant, the evidence remains inconclusive. A comparison to other age and mass estimates for the same stars in the literature uncovers biases for automated age estimates of helium-core burning stars.