Bibcode
Reid, Iain N.; Anderson, J.; Aparicio, A.; Chaboyer, B.; Dotter, A.; Piotto, G.; Marin-Franch, A.; Rosenberg, A.
Referencia bibliográfica
2007 AAS/AAPT Joint Meeting, American Astronomical Society Meeting 209, #100.14; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.1045
Fecha de publicación:
12
2006
Número de citas
0
Número de citas referidas
0
Descripción
The HST/ACS GGC Survey provides reliable photometry from 6 magnitudes
below the main sequence turn-off to the level of the horizontal branch (
3.5 magnitudes brighter than the turn-off) for 65 Galactic globular
clusters. The absolute ages of a sub-sample of those clusters, which
have low reddenings and well determined chemical compositions, have been
determined. The ages were derived from a large Monte Carlo simulation,
in which the various physical inputs required to produce isochrones
(such as nuclear reaction rates, opacities and colour transformations)
were varied within their known uncertainties. Each Monte Carlo isochrone
was tested to see if it provided a reasonable fit to the colours and
absolute magnitudes of local calibrating sub-dwarfs. Isochrones that
were unable to correctly reproduce the position of the local calibrating
stars in a colour-magnitude diagram were discarded. Isochrones passing
this test were used to determine the distance to the cluster, via main
sequence fitting between the theoretical isochrone and the observed main
sequence in each of the individual globular clusters. The age of the
globular cluster was then determined from the absolute magnitude of the
point on the sub-giant branch that is 0.04 mag redder than the turn-off.
This simulation takes into account all sources of error in the age
determination process and leads to a robust determination of the
absolute ages of the globular clusters.
Support for this work (GO-10775) was provided by NASA through a grant
from the Space Telescope Science Institute which is operated by the
Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Incorporated,
under NASA contract NAS5-26555.