lecture4.ppt-AAO.pptVIP

Gyro ages vs chromospheric ages for a sample of well studied stars (Barnes 2007). Ignore the blue crosses - stars bluer than B-V = 0.6 White dwarf luminosity function: useful for getting ages of a population (eg disk or halo) or for a globular cluster. Uses the cooling and fading of white dwarfs as age estimator for the population. The luminosity function of white dwarfs in the nearby disk Legget et al 1998 age = 9 Gyr White dwarf luminosity function ages for the Galactic disk and two globular clusters M4 and NGC 6397: the disk is clearly younger (Hansen et al 2007) Isochrone ages Trigonometric parallax gives MV which gives L after bolometric correction. Photometry gives Te. Now compare location of star in L-Te plane with theoretical isochrones: [Fe/H] is needed. Isochrones can give ages if star is in region of L-Te plane where L, Te depend on age : i.e not on the lower main sequence, and better not on the upper giant branch. Evolved stars still close to the main sequence require accurate Te. Subgiants are good. If no parallax, can use isochrones in the log g - Te plane: . [Fe/H], log g and Te can be derived from analysis of high resolution spectra or low resolution spectrophotometry log age subgiants GAIA will provide a huge increase in accurate isochrone ages: 1% distances at V = 14 Large biases can occur for isochrone ages if errors are significant, because the underlying distributions of stellar mass and abundance are not uniform. Bayesian techniques can include these underlying distributions as priors. See Pont Eyer (2004) There is still much disagreement about stellar age estimates Edvardsson et al (1993) ages for subgiants Nordstrom et al (2004) ages Stars mostly near main sequence [Fe/H] and Te from Str?mgren photometry against isochrone ages from Valenti Fischer (2005) Measuring accurate stellar ages is difficult (Reid et al 2007) Dartmouth isochrones For clusters, can use isochrone fits to derive the age an