Submitting Campus
Daytona Beach
Department
Physical Sciences
Document Type
Article
Publication/Presentation Date
Spring 3-1-1995
Abstract/Description
The white dwarf luminosity function of a stellar cluster will have a sharp trunca- tion at a luminosity which is determined by the time since formation of the first white dwarfs in that cluster. Calculation of the dependence of this limiting luminosity on age requires relatively well-understood physics and is independent of stellar evolutionary models. Thus, measurement of the termination of the white dwarf luminosity func- tion provides an independent method to determine the age of a cluster, and thereby to calibrate stellar evolutionary ages. We have obtained HST WFPC2 data in two open clusters, identified the white dwarf sequence, and proved the feasibility of this approach, by detecting white dwarfs to V=25. Much deeper data are feasible. From our present limited data, we show that degenerate cooling ages are not consistent with some published isochrone ages for clusters with ages of order 1Gyr.
Publication Title
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/273.1.L39
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Scholarly Commons Citation
von Hippel, T., Gilmore, G., & Jones, D. (1995). An Independent Calibration of Stellar Ages: HST Observations of White Dwarfs at V=25. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 723(1). https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/273.1.L39
