The Age Of Globular Clusters In Light Of Hipparcos: Resolving the Age Problem?

Abstract

We review five independent techniques which are used to set the distance scale to globular clusters, including subdwarf main sequence fitting utilizing the recent Hipparcos parallax catalogue. These data together all indicate that globular clusters are farther away than previously believed, implying a reduction in age estimates. This new distance scale estimate is combined with a detailed numerical Monte Carlo study designed to assess the uncertainty associated with the theoretical age-turnoff luminosity relationship in order to estimate both the absolute age and uncertainty in age of the oldest globular clusters. Our best estimate for the mean age of the oldest globular clusters is now $11.5\pm 1.3$Gyr, with a one-sided, 95% confidence level lower limit of 9.5 Gyr. This represents a systematic shift of over 2 $\sigma$ compared to our earlier estimate, due completely to the new distance scale---which we emphasize is not just due to the Hipparcos data. This now provides a lower limit on the age of the universe which is consistent with either an open universe, or a flat, matter dominated universe (the latter requiring $H_0 \le 67 \kmsmpc$). Our new study also explicitly quantifies how remaining uncertainties in the distance scale and stellar evolution models translate into uncertainties in the derived globular cluster ages. Simple formulae are provided which can be used to update our age estimate as improved determinations for various quantities become available.

41 pages, including 10 eps figs, uses aaspp4.sty and flushrt.sty, submitted to Ap.J., revised to incorporate FULL Hipparcos catalogue data

References in corpus (15)

• Abundances for Globular Cluster Giants: I. Homogeneous Metallicities for 24 Clusters
• The Cosmological Constant is Back
• Ages of Globular Clusters from Hipparcos Parallaxes of Local Subdwarfs
• Younger and brighter - New distances to globular clusters based on Hipparcos parallax measurements of local subdwarfs
• The Absolute Magnitude and Kinematics of RR Lyrae Stars via Statistical Parallax
• Globular Cluster Ages and the Formation of the Galactic Halo
• A Lower Limit on the Age of the Universe
• CCD Photometry of the Globular Cluster M5. I. The Color-Magnitude Diagram and Luminosity Functions
• Hipparcos Parallaxes and the Cepheid Distance Scale
• Absolute Ages of Globular Clusters and the Age of the Universe
• The evolution of ultraviolet emission lines from the circumstellar material surrounding SN 1987A
• Upper Limit to the Distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud
• The age of the oldest globular clusters
• The OPAL Equation of State and Low Metallicity Isochrones
• The Supernova Ring Revisited II: Distance to the LMC

Cited by in corpus (159)

• Observational Evidence from Supernovae for an Accelerating Universe and a Cosmological Constant
• Measurements of Omega and Lambda from 42 High-Redshift Supernovae
• Final Results from the Hubble Space Telescope Key Project to Measure the Hubble Constant
• The Case for a Positive Cosmological Lambda-term
• Curvature Quintessence
• The Cosmic Triangle: Revealing the State of the Universe
• The New Galaxy: Signatures of its Formation
• Non-Baryonic Dark Matter - Observational Evidence and Detection Methods
• Towards Better Age Estimates for Stellar Populations: The Y^2 Isochrones for Solar Mixture
• The Stellar Population Histories of Local Early-Type Galaxies. I. Population Parameters
• Constraining dark energy with SNe Ia and large-scale structure
• The ACS Survey of Galactic Globular Clusters. VII. Relative Ages
• Cosmic Concordance and Quintessence
• Dynamical Evolution of the Mass Function of Globular Star Clusters
• Photospheric radius expansion X-ray bursts as standard candles
• Distances, ages, and epoch of formation of globular clusters
• The White Dwarf Cooling Sequence of the Globular Cluster Messier 4
• Cosmological consequences of a Chaplygin gas dark energy
• CMB Observables and Their Cosmological Implications
• Galactic Globular Cluster Relative Ages. II
• The Problem of Hipparcos Distances to Open Clusters: I. Constraints from Multicolor Main Sequence Fitting
• Atomic Diffusion and Mixing in Old Stars I. VLT/FLAMES-UVES Observations of Stars in NGC 6397
• Gaia reveals a metal-rich in-situ component of the local stellar halo
• A Local Hubble Bubble from SNe Ia?
• Cooling Models for Old White Dwarfs
• HD 140283: A Star in the Solar Neighborhood that Formed Shortly After the Big Bang
• Cosmological Challenges in Theories with Extra Dimensions and Remarks on the Horizon Problem
• Extracting Primordial Density Fluctuations
• The core density of dark matter halos: a critical challenge to the Lambda-CDM paradigm?
• Astrometry with Hubble Space Telescope: A Parallax of the Fundamental Distance Calibrator RR Lyrae
• General Scalar Fields as Quintessence
• The influence of residual gas expulsion on the evolution of the Galactic globular cluster system and the origin of the Population II halo
• The ACS LCID project. V. The Star Formation History of the Dwarf Galaxy \objectname[]{LGS-3}: Clues for Cosmic Reionization and Feedback
• Extending the DAMA annual-modulation region by inclusion of the uncertainties in the astrophysical velocities
• Distance Scale Zero-Points from Galactic RR Lyrae Star Parallaxes
• The bottleneck of the CNO burning and the age of the Globular Clusters
• The Dark Universe
• The Pisa Stellar Evolution Data Base for low-mass stars
• Results from the High-Z Supernova Search Team
• An Infrared Einstein Ring in the Gravitational Lens PG 1115+080
• Nuclear Astrophysics
• New Light on the Formation and Evolution of M31 and its Globular Cluster System
• Direct measurement of the 14N(p,g)15O S-factor
• The Age, Extinction and Distance of the Old, Metal-Rich Open Cluster NGC 6791
• The H Beta Index as an Age Indicator of Old Stellar Systems: The Effects of Horizontal-Branch Stars
• The cosmic production of Helium
• Galactic Globular and Open Clusters in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. II. Test of Theoretical Stellar Isochrones
• Introducing the Dirac-Milne universe
• A confirmed location in the Galactic halo for the high-velocity cloud 'chain A'
• Supernovae Ia Constraints on a Time-Variable Cosmological "Constant"
• The UV Upturn in Elliptical Galaxies as an Age Indicator
• Dark Matter and Energy in the Universe
• Ages for Globular Clusters in the Outer Galactic Halo: The Second Parameter Clusters Palomar~3, Palomar~4 and Eridanus
• CCD Photometry of the Classic Second Parameter Globular Clusters M3 and M13
• Not All Stars Are the Sun: Empirical Calibration of the Mixing Length for Metal-Poor Stars Using One-dimensional Stellar Evolution Models
• Searching for Earth analogues around the nearest stars: the disk age-metallicity relation and the age distribution in the Solar Neighbourhood
• Cosmology at the Millennium
• New limits on ${\Omega }_{\Lambda }$ and ${\Omega }_M$ from old galaxies at high redshift
• Did Globular Clusters Reionize the Universe?
• The White Dwarf Cooling Age of M67
• Globular Cluster Distance Determinations
• Evidence for a Positive Cosmological Constant from Flows of Galaxies and Distant Supernovae
• The Metallicity Dependence of RR Lyrae Absolute Magnitudes from Synthetic Horizontal-Branch Models
• Evolutionary calculations of phase separation in crystallizing white dwarf stars
• Oxygen Abundances in Two Metal-Poor Subgiants from the Analysis of the 6300 A Forbidden O I Line
• Stars in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
• CCD Photometry of the Globular Cluster omega Centauri. II. Stellar Populations and Age-Metallicity Relation
• Aluminum Abundances, Deep Mixing and the Blue-Tail Second-Parameter Effect in the Globular Clusters M 3 and M 13
• Cumulative physical uncertainty in modern stellar models I. The case of low-mass stars
• Metal-Poor Globular Clusters and the Formation of Their Host Galaxies
• The End of the Age Problem, And The Case For A Cosmological Constant Revisited
• An Optical/Near-Infrared Study of Radio-Loud Quasar Environments II. Imaging Results
• Absolute Ages and Distances of 22 GCs using Monte Carlo Main-Sequence Fitting
• Standard Giant Branches in the Washington Photometric System
• Determination of Cosmological Parameters
• Calibrated stellar models for metal-poor population
• Theoretical Uncertainties in Red Giant Branch Evolution: The Red Giant Branch Bump
• Mass Power Spectrum in a Universe Dominated by the Chaplygin Gas
• The distance to NGC 6397 by M-subdwarf main-sequence fitting
• The Hubble Constant and the Expansion Age of the Universe
• The Age of the Universe
• Neutralino properties in the light of a further indication of an annual modulation effect in WIMP direct search
• A New Analysis of RR Lyrae Kinematics in the Solar Neighborhood
• Undermining the Cosmological Principle: Almost Isotropic Observations in Inhomogeneous Cosmologies
• Stellar Structure and Evolution: Deductions from Hipparcos
• CMB Anisotropy Constraints on Open and Flat-Lambda CDM Cosmogonies from UCSB South Pole, ARGO, MAX, White Dish, and SuZIE Data
• The Spectroscopic Age of 47 Tuc
• Globular cluster systems II: On the formation of old globular clusters and their sites of formation
• On the observational properties of He-burning stars: some clues on the tilt of the HB in metal rich clusters
• Theoretical Uncertainties in the Subgiant--Mass Age Relation and the Absolute Age of Omega Cen
• Horizontal-Branch Morphology and the Photometric Evolution of Old Stellar Populations
• Yonsei Evolutionary Population Synthesis (YEPS) Model. I. Spectroscopic Evolution of Simple Stellar Populations
• Type Ia Supernovae and Cosmology
• Cosmological parameters from cluster abundances, CMB and IRAS
• A pulsational approach to the luminosity of Horizontal Branch stellar structures
• Implications of a new temperature scale for halo dwarfs on LiBeB and chemical evolution
• Contribution of White Dwarfs to Cluster Masses
• The Age of the Inner Halo Globular Cluster NGC 6652
• The Cold Dark Matter crisis on galactic and subgalactic scales
• GAIA and the Extragalactic Distance Scale
• Full spectral fitting of Milky Way and M31 globular clusters: ages and metallicities
• The ${}^{14}N(p,\gamma {)}^{15}O$ reaction, solar neutrinos and the age of the globular clusters
• CCD Photometry of the Globlular Cluster NGC 5986 and its Post-Asymptotic-Giant-Branch and RR Lyrae Stars
• Constraining Large Scale Structure Theories with the Cosmic Background Radiation
• Studying Antimatter Gravity with Muonium
• Induced Matter and Particle Motion in Non-Compact Kaluza-Klein Gravity
• Hydra Observations of Aluminum Abundances in the Red Giants of the Globular Clusters M80 and NGC 6752
• Expansion history and f(R) modified gravity
• Stellar Envelope Convection calibrated by Radiation Hydrodynamics Simulations: Influence on Globular Clusters Isochrones
• Anisotropic cosmologies containing isotropic background radiation
• A cosmological model in Weyl-Cartan spacetime: II. Magnitude-redshift relation
• Testing non-standard cosmological models with supernovae
• Testing Metal Poor Stellar Models and Isochrones with HST Parallaxes of Metal Poor Stars
• Complementary constraints from FR IIb radio galaxies and X-ray gas mass fractions in clusters on non-standard cosmological models
• G2C2 II: Integrated colour-metallicity relations for Galactic Globular Clusters in SDSS passbands
• Deep Photometry of the Globular Cluster M5: Distance Estimates from White Dwarf and Main Sequence Stars
• Deflationary cosmology: constraints from angular size and ages of globular clusters
• Is Cosmology Solved?
• Cosmological models with dynamical lambda in scalar-tensor theories
• Non-Nucleosynthetic Constraints on the Baryon Density and Other Cosmological Parameters
• Subaru Spectroscopy of the Gravitational Lens HST 14176+5226: Implications for a Large Cosmological Constan
• The Age of Globular Clusters
• The impact of an updated ${}^{14}N(p,\gamma {)}^{15}O$ reaction rate on advanced evolutionary stages of low-mass stellar models
• On Bianchi type III Cosmological Model with Quadratic EoS in Lyra Geometry
• Cosmological Solutions with Torsion in a Model of de Sitter Gauge Theory of Gravity
• Cosmological parameters from complementary observations of the Universe
• The X-ray Luminosity Function of Nearby Rich and Poor Clusters of Galaxies: A Cosmological Probe
• Astrophysical implications of the proton-proton cross section updates
• Optical Observations of the Binary Pulsar System PSR B1718-19: Implications for Tidal Circularization
• The cosmological evolution of colour gradients in spheroids
• Old stellar population synthesis: New age and mass estimates for Mayall II = G1
• Observational Cosmology
• Cosmological Parameters 2000
• Coasting cosmologies with time dependent cosmological constant
• High Resolution Spectroscopic Abundances of Red Giant Branch Stars in NGC 6681
• Supersymmetric dark matter with a cosmological constant
• WIYN Imaging of the Globular Cluster Systems of the Spiral Galaxies NGC891 and NGC4013
• Baryonic Mass Fraction in Rich Clusters and the Total Mass Density in the Cosmos
• 'Steckbrief' Lambda
• A Differential Abundance Analysis of Very Metal-Poor Stars
• From Theory to Observations and viceversa: theoretical uncertainties and observational constraints
• A vindication of the RR Lyrae Fourier light curve decomposition for the calculation of metallicity and distance in globular clusters
• The Galactic Halo density distribution from photometric survey data: results of a pilot study
• Five Dimensional Cosmological Models in General Relativity
• Distances and ages of globular clusters using Hipparcos parallaxes of local subdwarfs
• Study of proton capture resonant state of ^{15}O at 7556 keV
• The Measure of Cosmological Parameters
• The Distance to NGC 5904 (M 5) via the Subdwarfs Main Sequence Fitting Method
• Classification of multifluid CP world models
• Revised Baade-Wesselink Analysis of RR Lyrae Stars
• New Globular Cluster Age Estimates and Constraints on the Cosmic Equation of State and The Matter Density of the Universe
• Searching for a solution to the cosmological constant problem - a toy model
• Phenomenological aspects of dark energy dominated cosmologies
• Tensorial Perturbations in an Accelerating Universe
• Cosmological constant and the fate of the DDM theory
• Kinematics and Dynamics of the Galactic Stellar Halo
• Where galaxies really come from
• A Near-Infrared and Optical Study of NGC 5822: An Open Cluster Hosting Barium-stars and Lithium-Enriched Giant Stars
• Remarks on the "New Redshift Interpretation"