Mapping the Ages of Stars with Chemistry

TL;DR

This paper discusses how chemical abundance ratios, combined with advanced spectroscopy and other data, can serve as precise tools for determining stellar ages and reconstructing the Milky Way's formation history.

Contribution

It proposes leveraging wide-field, high-resolution spectroscopy with the WST to improve chemical clocks and map the Galaxy's age structure at an unprecedented scale.

Findings

Chemical clocks can be calibrated across different Galactic environments.

High-resolution spectroscopy enables precise stellar age estimations.

The WST can provide homogeneous datasets for Galactic archaeology.

Abstract

Chemical clocks, based on age-sensitive stellar abundance ratios, offer a powerful and scalable approach to reconstruct the formation history of the Milky Way. This white paper outlines how wide-field, high-resolution spectroscopy can transform chemical clocks into precise and broadly applicable stellar age estimators when combined with astrometry and asteroseismology. We summarize the current limitations, including calibration across Galactic environments and the impact of internal stellar evolution, and define the observational requirements needed to overcome them. The Wide-field Spectroscopic Telescope (WST), with its large field of view, high multiplex, and broad wavelength coverage at high spectral resolution, is uniquely suited to deliver the homogeneous datasets required to map the age structure of the Galaxy at unprecedented scale. Such a capability will enable decisive progress in Galactic archaeology and stellar evolution studies.