Absolute Magnitudes of Seismic Red Clumps in the Kepler Field and SAGA: The Age Dependency of the Distance Scale
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Red clump stars are fundamental distance indicators in astrophysics, although theoretical stellar models predict a dependence of absolute magnitudes with age. This effect is particularly strong below ∼2 Gyr, but even above this limit a mild age dependence is still expected. We use seismically identified red clump stars in the Kepler field for which we have reliable distances, masses, and ages from the SAGA survey, to first explore this effect. By excluding red clump stars with masses larger than (corresponding to ages younger than 2 Gyr), we derive robust calibrations linking intrinsic colors to absolute magnitudes in the following photometric systems: Strömgren by, Johnson BV, Sloan griz, 2MASS JHK s , and WISE . With the precision achieved we also detect a slope of absolute magnitudes in the infrared, implying that distance calibrations of clump stars can be off by up to in the infrared (over the range from 2 to 12 Gyr) if their ages are unknown. Even larger uncertainties affect optical bands, because of the stronger interdependency of absolute magnitudes on colors and age. Our distance calibrations are ultimately based on asteroseismology, and we show how the distance scale can be used to test the accuracy of seismic scaling relations. Within the uncertainties our calibrations are in agreement with those built upon local red clumps with Hipparcos parallaxes, although we find a tension, which, if confirmed, would imply that scaling relations overestimate the radii of red clump stars by 2 ± 2%. Data releases post Gaia DR1 will provide an important testbed for our results.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".