Constraining the helium-to-metal enrichment ratio ΔY/ΔZ from nearby field stars using Gaia DR3 photometry

¹ Dipartimento di Fisica “Enrico Fermi”, Università di Pisa, Largo Pontecorvo 3, I-56127 Pisa, Italy
² INFN, Sezione di Pisa, Largo Pontecorvo 3, I-56127 Pisa, Italy

^⋆ Corresponding author: valle@df.unipi.it

Received: 31 July 2025
Accepted: 12 September 2025

Abstract

Aims. We investigate the feasibility of accurately determining the helium-to-metal enrichment ratio, ΔY/ΔZ, from Gaia DR3 photometry for nearby low-mass main sequence field stars.

Methods. We selected a sample of 2770 nearby MS stars from the Gaia DR3 catalogue, covering a GaiaM_G absolute magnitude range of 6.0 to 6.8 mag. We computed a dense grid of isochrones, with ΔY/ΔZ varying from 0.4 to 3.2. These models were then used to fit the observations using the SCEPtER pipeline.

Results. The fitted values indicated that ΔY/ΔZ values of 1.5 ± 0.5 were adequate for most stars. However, several clues suggested caution ought to be taken in interpreting this result. Chief among these concerns is the trend of decreasing ΔY/ΔZ with increasing M_G magnitude, as well as the discrepancy between the red and blue parts of the observations. This result is further supported by our additional analysis of mock data, which were sampled and fitted from the same isochrone grid. In the mock data, no such trend emerged, while the uncertainty remained as large as 0.7. The robustness of our conclusions was confirmed by repeating the estimation using isochrones with Gaia magnitudes derived from different atmospheric models and by adopting a different stellar evolution code for stellar model computation. In both cases, the results changed drastically, clustering at ΔY/ΔZ ≈ 0.4, which is at the lower end of the allowed values.

Conclusions. Considering the current uncertainties affecting stellar model computations, it appears that adopting field stars for calibration is not a viable approach, even when adopting precise Gaia photometry.