Determining stellar parameters of asteroseismic targets: going beyond the use of scaling relations

Asteroseismic parameters allow us to measure the basic stellar properties of field giants observed far across the Galaxy. Most of such determinations are, up to now, based on simple scaling relations involving the large frequency separation, \Delta\nu, and the frequency of maximum power, \nu$_{max}$. In this work, we implement \Delta\nu\ and the period spacing, {\Delta}P, computed along detailed grids of stellar evolutionary tracks, into stellar isochrones and hence in a Bayesian method of parameter estimation. Tests with synthetic data reveal that masses and ages can be determined with typical precision of 5 and 19 per cent, respectively, provided precise seismic parameters are available. Adding independent information on the stellar luminosity, these values can decrease down to 3 and 10 per cent respectively. The application of these methods to NGC 6819 giants produces a mean age in agreement with those derived from isochrone fitting, and no evidence of systematic differences between RGB and RC stars. The age dispersion of NGC 6819 stars, however, is larger than expected, with at least part of the spread ascribable to stars that underwent mass-transfer events.