高样本量下星体年龄推断可能稳定但系统性偏差，影响银河系演化研究。
Stable but Wrong: An Inference Limit in Galactic Archaeology
- 通过大样本子巨星数据，发现观测质量影响年龄推断的系统偏移
- 在信噪比与视差精度特定区间，形成时间推算偏移0.5-1吉年
- 提醒学者警惕统计稳定背后的系统误差，尤其关注天文观测质量
观测科学中的统计推断通常依赖一个基本假设：随着样本量增加、不确定性降低，推断结果应趋近真实物理量。这一假设支撑了大数据带来更可靠结论的观点。在银河系考古学中，光谱巡天获取的恒星年龄被广泛用于重建银河系盘的形成历史，年龄-金属丰度关系（AMR）及其推导的形成时标被视为早期盘演化的关键物理诊断工具。该解释隐含了一个前提：观测质量不会引入年龄推断的系统性偏差。本文表明该前提可能失效。基于大量子巨星样本，我们识别出观测质量参数空间（信噪比与视差精度）中的一个区域，在该区域中推断的形成时标相较独立的类太阳振荡参考值存在0.5-1吉年的系统偏移，而统计不确定性仍很小，从而产生‘稳定但错误’的推断状态。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Statistical inference in observational science typically relies on a fundamental assumption: as sample size increases and uncertainties decrease, the inferred results should converge to the true physical quantities. This assumption underpins the notion that big data lead to more reliable conclusions. In Galactic archaeology, stellar ages inferred from spectroscopic surveys are widely used to reconstruct the formation history of the Milky Way disk. The age metallicity relation (AMR) and its derived formation timescale are often regarded as key physical diagnostics of early disk evolution. This interpretation carries an implicit premise: that observational quality does not introduce systematic bias into age inference. Here we show that this premise may fail. Using a large sample of subgiant stars, we identify a region in the observational quality parameter space (signal-to-noise ratio and parallax precision) where the inferred formation timescale exhibits a systematic offset of 0.5-1 Gyr relative to an independent asteroseismic reference, while the statistical uncertainties remain small, thus producing a stable-but-wrong inference state.
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