The Age of the Galactic Disk
arXiv:astro-ph/9911382 · doi:10.1007/978-94-010-0938-6_34
Abstract
I review different methods devised to derive the age of the Galactic Disk, namely the Radio-active Decay (RD), the Cool White Dwarf Luminosity Function (CWDLF), old opne clusters (OOC) and the Color Magnitude Diagram (CMD) of the stars in the solar vicinity. I argue that the disk is likely to be 8-10 Gyr old. Since the bulk of globulars has an age around 13 Gyr, the possibility emerges that the Galaxy experienced a minimum of Star Formation at the end of the halo/bulge formation. This minimum might reflect the time at which the Galaxy started to acquire material to form the disk inside-out.
10 pages, 4 figure, invited review, in "The chemical evolution of the Milky Way : Stars vs Clusters, Vulcano (Italy), 20-24 September 1999