The APO-K2 Catalog. II. Accurate Stellar Ages for Red Giant Branch Stars across the Milky Way

Abstract

We present stellar age determinations for 4661 red giant branch stars in the APO-K2 catalog, derived using mass estimates from K2 asteroseismology from the K2 Galactic Archaeology Program and elemental abundances from the Apache Point Galactic Evolution Experiment survey. Our sample includes 17 of the 19 fields observed by K2, making it one of the most comprehensive catalogs of accurate stellar ages across the Galaxy in terms of the wide range of populations spanned by its stars, enabling rigorous tests of Galactic chemical evolution models. Taking into account the selection functions of the K2 sample, the data appear to support the age−chemistry morphology of stellar populations predicted by both inside-out and late-burst scenarios. We also investigate trends in age versus stellar chemistry and Galactic position, which are consistent with previous findings. Comparisons against APOKASC-3 asteroseismic ages show agreement to within ∼3%. We also discuss offsets between our ages and spectroscopic ages. Finally, we note that ignoring the effects of α -enhancement on stellar opacity (either directly or with the Salaris metallicity correction) results in an ∼10% offset in age estimates for the most α -enhanced stars, which is an important consideration for continued tests of Galactic models with this and other asteroseismic age samples.

Keywords

• Stellar ages
• Asteroseismology
• Stellar abundances
• Milky Way evolution
• Milky Way formation
• Galaxy stellar content