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Register a new userAge dissection of the Milky Way discs: red giants in the Kepler field
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[Abridged] Ensemble studies of red-giant stars with exquisite asteroseismic, spectroscopic, and astrometric constraints offer a novel opportunity to recast and address long-standing questions concerning the evolution of stars and of the Galaxy. Here, we infer masses and ages for nearly 5400 giants with available Kepler light curves and APOGEE spectra, and discuss some of the systematics that may affect the accuracy of the inferred stellar properties. First, we look at age-chemical-abundances relations. We find a dearth of young, metal-rich stars, and the existence of a significant population of old (8-9 Gyr), low-[$alpha$/Fe], super-solar metallicity stars, reminiscent of the age and metallicity of the well-studied open cluster NGC6791. The age-chemo-kinematic properties of these stars indicate that efficient radial migration happens in the thin disk. We find that ages and masses of the nearly 400 $alpha$-element-rich red-giant-branch (RGB) stars in our sample are compatible with those of an old (~11 Gyr), nearly coeval, chemical-thick disk population. Using a statistical model, we show that 95% of the population was born within ~1.5 Gyr. Moreover, we find a difference in the vertical velocity dispersion between low- and high-[$alpha$/Fe] populations, confirming their different chemo-dynamical histories. We then exploit the almost coeval $alpha$-rich population to gain insight into processes that may have altered the mass of a star along its evolution, which are key to improve the mapping of the observed stellar mass to age. We find evidence for a mean integrated RGB mass loss <$Delta$M>= 0.10 $pm$ 0.02 Msun and that the occurrence of massive (M $gtrsim$ 1.1 Msun) $alpha$-rich stars is of the order of 5% on the RGB, and significantly higher in the RC, supporting the scenario in which most of these stars had undergone interaction with a companion.
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Investigations of the origin and evolution of the Milky Way disk have long relied on chemical and kinematic identification of its components to reconstruct our Galactic past. Difficulties in determining precise stellar ages have restricted most studies to small samples, normally confined to the solar neighbourhood. Here we break this impasse with the help of asteroseismic inference and perform a chronology of the evolution of the disk throughout the age of the Galaxy. We chemically dissect the Milky Way disk population using a sample of red giant stars spanning out to 2~kpc in the solar annulus observed by the {it Kepler} satellite, with the added dimension of asteroseismic ages. Our results reveal a clear difference in age between the low- and high-$alpha$ populations, which also show distinct velocity dispersions in the $V$ and $W$ components. We find no tight correlation between age and metallicity nor [$alpha$/Fe] for the high-$alpha$ disk stars. Our results indicate that this component formed over a period of more than 2~Gyr with a wide range of [M/H] and [$alpha$/Fe] independent of time. Our findings show that the kinematic properties of young $alpha$-rich stars are consistent with the rest of the high-$alpha$ population and different from the low-$alpha$ stars of similar age, rendering support to their origin being old stars that went through a mass transfer or stellar merger event, making them appear younger, instead of migration of truly young stars formed close to the Galactic bar.
Stellar ages are a crucial component to studying the evolution of the Milky Way. Using Gaia DR2 distance estimates, it is now possible to estimate stellar ages for a larger volume of evolved stars through isochrone matching. This work presents [M/H]-age and [$alpha$/M]-age relations derived for different spatial locations in the Milky Way disc. These relations are derived by hierarchically modelling the star formation history of stars within a given chemical abundance bin. For the first time, we directly observe that significant variation is apparent in the [M/H]-age relation as a function of both Galactocentric radius and distance from the disc mid-plane. The [M/H]-age relations support claims that radial migration has a significant effect in the plane of the disc. Using the [M/H] bin with the youngest mean age at each radial zone in the plane of the disc, the present-day metallicity gradient is measured to be $-0.059 pm 0.010$ dex kpc$^{-1}$, in agreement with Cepheids and young field stars. We find a vertically flared distribution of young stars in the outer disc, confirming predictions of models and previous observations. The mean age of the [M/H]-[$alpha$/M] distribution of the solar neighborhood suggests that the high-[M/H] stars are not an evolutionary extension of the low-$alpha$ sequence. Our observational results are important constraints to Galactic simulations and models of chemical evolution.
We investigate the properties of the double sequences of the Milky Way discs visible in the [$alpha$/Fe] vs [Fe/H] diagram. In the framework of Galactic formation and evolution, we discuss the complex relationships between age, metallicity, [$alpha$/Fe], and the velocity components. We study stars with measured chemical, seismic and astrometric properties from the APOGEE survey, the Kepler and Gaia satellites, respectively. We separate the [$alpha$/Fe]-[Fe/H] diagram into 3 stellar populations: the thin disc, the high-$alpha$ metal-poor thick disc and the high-$alpha$ metal-rich thick disc and characterise each of these in the age-chemo-kinematics parameter space. We compare results obtained from different APOGEE data releases and using two recent age determinations. We use the Besanc{c}on Galaxy model (BGM) to highlight selection biases and mechanisms not included in the model. The thin disc exhibits a flat age-metallicity relation while [$alpha$/Fe] increases with stellar age. We confirm no correlation between radial and vertical velocities with [Fe/H], [$alpha$/Fe] and age for each stellar population. Considering both samples, V$_varphi$ decreases with age for the thin disc, while it increases with age for the h$alpha$mp thick disc. Although the age distribution of the h$alpha$mr thick disc is very close to that of the h$alpha$mp thick disc between 7 and 14 Gyr, its kinematics seems to follow that of the thin disc. This feature, not predicted by the hypotheses included in the BGM, suggests a different origin and history for this population. Finally, we show that there is a maximum dispersion of the vertical velocity, $sigma_Z$, with age for the h$alpha$mp thick disc around 8 Gyr. The comparisons with the BGM simulations suggest a more complex chemo-dynamical scheme to explain this feature, most likely including mergers and radial migration effects
If the Galaxy is axisymmetric and in dynamical equilibrium, we expect negligible fluctuations in the residual line-of-sight velocity field. Recent results using the apg{} survey find significant fluctuations in velocity for stars in the midplane ($|z|<$0.25 kpc) out to 5 kpc, suggesting that the dynamical influence of non-axisymmetric features i.e., the Milky Ways bar, spiral arms and merger events extends out to the Solar neighborhood. Their measured power spectrum has a characteristic amplitude of 11 kms{} on a scale of 2.5 kpc. The existence of such large-scale streaming motions has important implications for determining the Suns motion about the Galactic Centre. Using Red Clump stars from glh{} and apg{}, we map the line-of-sight velocities around the Sun (d$<$5 kpc), and $|z|<$1.25 kpc from the midplane. By subtracting a smooth axisymmetric model for the velocity field, we study the residual fluctuations and compare our findings with mock survey generated by glx{}. We find negligible large-scale fluctuations away from the plane. In the mid-plane, we reproduce the earlier apg{} power spectrum but with 20% smaller amplitude (9.3 kms{}) after taking into account a few systematics (e.g., volume completeness). Using a flexible axisymmetric model the power-amplitude is further reduced to 6.3 kms{}. Additionally, our simulations show that, in the plane, distances are underestimated for high-mass Red Clump stars which can lead to spurious power-amplitude of about 5.2 kms{}. Taking this into account, we estimate the amplitude of real fluctuations to be $<$4.6 kms{}, about a factor of three less than the apg{} result.
The central kiloparsecs of the Milky Way are known to host an old, spheroidal stellar population, whose spatial and kinematical properties set it apart from the boxy/peanut structure that constitutes most of the central stellar mass. The nature of this spheroidal population, whether a small classical bulge, the innermost stellar halo or a population of disk stars with large initial velocity dispersion, remains unclear. This structure is also a promising candidate to host some of the oldest stars in the Galaxy. Here we address the topic of the inner stellar spheroid age, using spectroscopic and photometric metallicities for a sample of 935 RR Lyrae stars that are constituents of this component. By means of stellar population synthesis, we derive an age-metallicity relation for RR Lyrae populations. We infer, for the RR Lyrae stars in the bulge spheroid, an extremely ancient age of $13.41 pm 0.54$ Gyr and conclude they were among the first stars to form in what is now the Milky Way galaxy. Our age estimate for the central spheroid shows remarkable agreement with the age profile that has been inferred for the Milky Way stellar halo, suggesting a connection between the two structures. However, we find mild evidence for a transition in the halo properties at $r_{rm GC} sim 5$~kpc. We also investigate formation scenarios for metal-rich RR Lyrae stars, such as binarity and helium variations, and whether they can provide alternative explanations for the properties of our sample. We conclude that, within our framework, the only viable alternative is to have younger, slightly helium-rich, RR Lyrae stars, a hypothesis that would open intriguing questions for the formation of the inner stellar spheroid.
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