Issue |
A&A
Volume 683, March 2024
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A165 | |
Number of page(s) | 13 | |
Section | Galactic structure, stellar clusters and populations | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202348611 | |
Published online | 15 March 2024 |
Evaporation ages: A new dating method for young star clusters⋆
1
Institut de Ciències del Cosmos, Universitat de Barcelona, IEEC-UB, Martí i Franqués 1, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
e-mail: veli.matti.pelkonen@icc.ub.edu
2
University of Vienna, Department of Astrophysics, Türkenschanzstraße 17, 1180 Wien, Austria
3
ICREA, Pg. Lluís Companys 23, 08010 Barcelona, Spain
4
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Dartmouth College, 6127 Wilder Laboratory, Hanover, NH 03755, USA
Received:
14
November
2023
Accepted:
9
January
2024
Context. The ages of young star clusters are fundamental clocks to constrain the formation and evolution of pre-main-sequence stars and their protoplanetary disks and exoplanets. However, dating methods for very young clusters often disagree, casting doubts on the accuracy of the derived ages.
Aims. We propose a new method to derive the kinematic age of star clusters based on the evaporation ages of their stars.
Methods. The method was validated and calibrated using hundreds of clusters identified in a supernova-driven simulation of the interstellar medium forming stars for approximately 40 Myr within a 250 pc region.
Results. We demonstrate that the clusters’ evaporation-age uncertainty can be as small as about 10% for clusters with a large enough number of evaporated stars and small but with realistic observational errors. We have obtained evaporation ages for a pilot sample of ten clusters, finding a good agreement with their published isochronal ages.
Conclusions. The evaporation ages will provide important constraints for modeling the pre-main-sequence evolution of low-mass stars, as well as allow for the star formation and gas-evaporation history of young clusters to be investigated. These ages can be more accurate than isochronal ages for very young clusters, for which observations and models are more uncertain.
Key words: stars: kinematics and dynamics / open clusters and associations: general / open clusters and associations: individual: β Pictoris / open clusters and associations: individual: Tucana-Horologium / open clusters and associations: individual: Ophiuchus / open clusters and associations: individual: Upper Scorpius
Full Table B.1 is available at the CDS via anonymous ftp to cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr (130.79.128.5) or via https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/683/A165
© The Authors 2024
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This article is published in open access under the Subscribe to Open model. Subscribe to A&A to support open access publication.
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.