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Insights into star formation and dispersal from the synchronization of stellar clocks

Nature Astronomy volume 8, pages 216–222 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Age is one of the most fundamental parameters of a star, yet it is one of the hardest to determine as it requires modelling various aspects of stellar formation and evolution. When we compare the ages derived from isochronal and dynamical traceback methods for six young stellar associations, we find a systematic discrepancy. Specifically, dynamical traceback ages are consistently younger by an average of 〈ΔAge〉 = 5.5 ± 1.1 Myr. We rule out measurement errors as the cause of the age mismatch and propose that ΔAge indicates the time a young star remains bound to its parental cloud before moving away from its siblings. In this framework, the dynamical traceback ‘clock’ starts when a stellar cluster or association begins to expand after expelling most of the gas, whereas the isochronal ‘clock’ starts earlier when most stars form. The difference between these two age-dating techniques is a powerful tool for constraining evolutionary models, as isochronal ages cannot be younger than dynamical traceback ages. Measuring the ΔAge accurately and understanding its variations across different environments will provide further information on the impact of local conditions and stellar feedback on the formation and dispersal of stellar clusters.

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Fig. 1: Systematic offset between ages from evolutionary models and dynamical traceback ages.
Fig. 2: Diagram showing the different phases in the formation of stellar clusters and associations.
Fig. 3: ΔAge as a function of the number of association members.

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The data that support the findings of this study are available in Table 1.

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Acknowledgements

D.B. is supported by Spanish MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 Grant nos. PID2019-107061GB-C61 and MDM-2017-0737. S.R. acknowledges funding from the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (https://www.ffg.at/) under project no. FO999892674.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Vienna, Department of Astrophysics, Vienna, Austria

    Núria Miret-Roig, João Alves & Sebastian Ratzenböck

  2. Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC-INTA), Depto. de Astrofísica, Madrid, Spain

    David Barrado

  3. Universitäts-Sternwarte, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany

    Andreas Burkert

  4. Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Garching, Germany

    Andreas Burkert & Ralf Konietzka

  5. Excellence Cluster ORIGINS, Garching, Germany

    Andreas Burkert

  6. University of Vienna, Research Network Data Science at Uni Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Sebastian Ratzenböck

  7. Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany

    Ralf Konietzka

  8. Harvard University Department of Astronomy, Center for Astrophysics ∣ Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Ralf Konietzka

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Contributions

N.M.-R. led the analysis and wrote the manuscript. S.R. computed the isochrone-fitting ages reported in this study and did the Bayesian modelling in Fig. 3. All authors participated in the scientific discussion.

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Correspondence to Núria Miret-Roig.

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Miret-Roig, N., Alves, J., Barrado, D. et al. Insights into star formation and dispersal from the synchronization of stellar clocks. Nat Astron 8, 216–222 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-023-02132-4

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