Old, Low-Mass, Metal-Rich (SMR) Stars

Soubiran, C.; Lebreton, Y.; Cayrel de Strobel, G.; Friel, E. D.

France, United States

Abstract

The authors of this paper try to disentangle the many problems arisen from a new enlarged sample of nearby low-mass,metal-rich-stars. These stars have reliable absolute magnitudes, deduced from Hipparcos parallaxes, precise bolometric corrections, effective temperatures and metal abundances from high resolution detailed spectroscopic analyses. Their ages have been derived from a grid of isochrones calculated with up to date physics. The main goal of this paper is to determine the ages of the slightly evolved SMR stars. Among those with well determinated ages about 80% of them have intermediate ages of (2 to 5 Gyr), but only 20% have ages of 8 Gyr or more. Nevertheless, the existence of very old metal-rich stars is confirmed.

1999 Astrophysics and Space Science
Hipparcos 4