The Absolute Age of the Open Cluster NGC 6791 and Its Implications for Galactic Archaeology and Asteroseismic Calibration

TL;DR

This study accurately determines the age of the old, metal-rich open cluster NGC 6791 using Gaia data, eclipsing binaries, and advanced isochrone modeling, with implications for galactic evolution and asteroseismology.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive method combining Gaia photometry, binary data, and Monte Carlo isochrone sets to precisely estimate the cluster's age and properties.

Findings

NGC 6791's age is 8.46 ± 0.66 Gyr.

The cluster has [Fe/H] = +0.280 ± 0.079.

Results support an inner-Galaxy origin and migration scenario.

Abstract

We present a new absolute age determination for NGC 6791, one of the Milky Way's oldest and most metal-rich open clusters. Its unusual properties make it an important probe of inner-disk evolution and asteroseismic calibration, but its age has remained difficult to determine because of coupled uncertainties in reddening, distance, photometry, and stellar-model physics. Gaia DR3 photometry together with detached eclipsing binaries (DEBs) in NGC 6791 are combined with 10,000 Monte Carlo isochrone sets (marginalizing over uncertainties in composition, convective mixing processes, opacities, diffusion, nuclear reaction-rates, distance modulus, and reddening) to determine the age of NGC 6791. For each isochrone we build a synthetic color-magnitude diagram (CMD) that matches the observed star count in the MSTO and subgiant-branch window and injects empirical photometric scatter perpendicular to the ridgeline, enabling CMD comparisons without artificial-star tests. We assess CMD morphology using a bootstrap-calibrated two-dimensional Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistic, and add an external check based on the nearest-point metric: a coeval DEB statistic in $(M,L)$ space. These statistics are mapped to probability-density weights via bootstrap-resampling and combined into a single isochrone weight. NGC 6791 is determined to have an age of $8.46\pm0.66$ Gyr, $[\mathrm{Fe/H}]=+0.280\pm0.079$, $Y=0.2968\pm0.0158$, $(m{-}M)_V=13.333\pm0.058$, and $E(B{-}V)=0.183\pm0.024$. Our error budget shows no single dominant contributor, and highlights differences between open-cluster and globular-cluster age errors. Combined with its super-solar metallicity, our age estimate favors an inner-Galaxy origin for NGC 6791 and subsequent outward migration, provides a benchmark for asteroseismic calibration at high metallicity, and extends the absolute cluster age--metallicity relation to an old, metal-rich open cluster.