Fine structure of the age-chromospheric activity relation in solar-type stars

I. The Ca II infrared triplet: Absolute flux calibration^⋆,⋆⋆

¹ Observatório do Valongo, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Ladeira do Pedro Antonio 43, CEP: 20080-090 Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
e-mail: diego@astro.ufrj.br; gustavo@astro.ufrj.br; leticia@astro.ufrj.br
² Institut de Ciències de l’Espai (CSIC-IEEC), Facultat de Ciències, Carrer de Can Magrans, s/n, Campus UAB, 08193 Bellaterra, Spain
e-mail: iribas@ice.cat
³ Departamento de Física Teórica e Experimental, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Campus Universitário Lagoa Nova, 59072-970 Natal, RN, Brazil
e-mail: leticia@dfte.ufrn.br

Received: 29 April 2016
Accepted: 7 June 2016

Abstract

Context. Strong spectral lines are useful indicators of stellar chromospheric activity. They are physically linked to the convection efficiency, differential rotation, and angular momentum evolution and are a potential indicator of age. However, for ages > 2 Gyr, the age-activity relationship remains poorly constrained thus hampering its full application.

Aims. The Ca II infrared triplet (IRT lines, λλ 8498, 8542, and 8662) has been poorly studied compared to classical chromospheric indicators. We report in this paper absolute chromospheric fluxes in the three Ca II IRT lines, based on a new calibration tied to up-to-date model atmospheres.

Methods. We obtain the Ca II IRT absolute fluxes for 113 FGK stars from high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) and high-resolution spectra covering an extensive domain of chromospheric activity levels. We perform an absolute continuum flux calibration for the Ca II IRT lines anchored in atmospheric models calculated as an explicit function of effective temperatures (T_eff), metallicity ([Fe/H]), and gravities (log g) avoiding the degeneracy usually present in photometric continuum calibrations based solely on color indices.

Results. The internal uncertainties achieved for continuum absolute flux calculations are ≈2% of the solar chromospheric flux, one order of magnitude lower than for photometric calibrations. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we gauge the impact of observational errors on the final chromospheric fluxes due to the absolute continuum flux calibration and find that T_effuncertainties are properly mitigated by the photospheric correction leaving [Fe/H] as the dominating factor in the chromospheric flux uncertainty.

Conclusions. Across the FGK spectral types, the Ca II IRT lines are sensitive to chromospheric activity. The reduced internal uncertainties reported here enable us to build a new chromospheric absolute flux scale and explore the age-activity relation from the active regime down to very low activity levels and a wide range of T_eff, mass, [Fe/H], and age.