English

A Generalist Model Including Evolved Star Mass and Age

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2026-03-05 v1 Astrophysics of Galaxies Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics

Abstract

Determining precise stellar ages and masses for evolved giants is crucial for Galactic archaeology but challenged by spectral degeneracies. Gaia's low-resolution XP spectra offer a unique opportunity to infer these parameters on a massive scale using data-driven methods. We extend a transformer-based astronomical foundation model to evolved stars, establishing a unified framework to simultaneously predict atmospheric parameters (TeffT_{\mathrm{eff}}, logg\log g, [M/H][\mathrm{M}/\mathrm{H}]) and evolutionary labels (mass, age) with physical consistency. Treating spectra as token sequences, we integrated mass and age into the model's vocabulary. The model is trained on Gaia XP spectra cross-matched with the APOGEE DR17 DistMass catalog. Our generative approach enables flexible input handling, including spectral inpainting and parameter-to-spectrum generation. On an independent test set, the model achieves a prediction scatter of σ0.114M\sigma \approx 0.114 \, M_{\odot} for mass and σ1.334\sigma \approx 1.334 Gyr for age. Beyond numerical accuracy, it successfully reproduces the giant branch's mass-luminosity relation and autonomously disentangles interstellar extinction from intrinsic temperature variations without explicit physical priors. It also robustly recovers missing spectral data and estimates reliable uncertainties. Validating that foundation models can internalize stellar physics from data, this physically-aware, probabilistic framework offers a powerful tool for unraveling Milky Way history using large-scale spectroscopic surveys.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.03732,
  title  = {A Generalist Model Including Evolved Star Mass and Age},
  author = {Mengmeng Zhang and Yude Bu and Siqi Wang and Shanshan Li and Jiangchuan Zhang and Jingzhen Sun and Yuhang Zhang and Ke Wang and Jian Liu and Hongliang Yan and Zhenping Yi and Meng Liu and Xiaoming Kong},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.03732},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T11:02:28.967Z