Related papers: On the age and mass function of the globular clust…
Using WFPC2 on the Hubble Space Telescope, we have isolated a sample of 258 white dwarfs (WDs) in the Galactic globular cluster M4. Fields at three radial distances from the cluster center were observed and sizeable WD populations were…
We combine infrared (IR) observations collected by the James Webb Space Telescope with optical deep images by the Hubble Space Telescope taken approximately 20 years earlier to compute proper-motion membership for the globular cluster (GC)…
We investigate in detail the white dwarf cooling sequence of the globular cluster Messier 4. In particular we study the influence of various systematic uncertainties, both observational and theoretical, on the determination of the cluster…
Globular Clusters (GCs) in the Milky Way are the primary laboratories for establishing the ages of the oldest stellar populations and for measuring the color-magnitude relation of stars. In infrared (IR) color-magnitude diagrams (CMDs), the…
The deepest optical image ever in a globular star cluster, a Hubble Space Telescope (HST) 123 orbit exposure in a single field of Messier 4, was obtained in 2 filters (F606W, F814W) over a 10 week period in early 2001. A somewhat shallower…
We present the white dwarf sequence of the globular cluster M4, based on a 123 orbit Hubble Space Telescope exposure, with limiting magnitude V = 30, I = 28. The white dwarf luminosity function rises sharply for I >25.5, consistent with the…
As first Paper of a series devoted to study the old stellar population in clusters and fields in the Small Magellanic Cloud, we present deep observations of NGC121 in the F555W and F814W filters, obtained with the Advanced Camera for…
We present an estimate of the absolute age of 68 galactic globular clusters obtained by exploiting the distribution of stars in the full color-magnitude diagram. In particular, we jointly estimate the absolute age, distance, reddening,…
This is the third article in a series aimed at computing accurate and precise ages of galactic globular clusters from their full color-magnitude diagram in order to estimate the age of the Universe and in turn constrain the cosmological…
We explore the reliability and robustness in measuring the age, metallicity and mass of a sample of old Milky Way globular clusters (GCs) from their integrated light, setting the stage for using GCs as cosmic clocks at high redshift. We…
We revisit the determination of the age of the Universe from galactic globular clusters, extending previous analyses by explicitly accounting for the presence of multiple stellar populations within each cluster. Using high--quality…
Deep Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations with WFPC2 of the nearby globular cluster NGC 6752 have allowed us to obtain accurate photometry for the cluster white dwarfs (WD). A sample of local WDs of known trigonometric parallax and…
The WMAP satellite has provided a new measurement of the age of the Universe, of $13.7 \pm 0.2$ Gyr. A comparison of this limit with constraints from stellar evolution imply that the oldest globular clusters in the Milky Way galaxy have a…
Relative ages for the globular cluster (GC) subpopulations in the Virgo giant elliptical galaxy M87 (NGC 4486) have been determined from Stroemgren photometry obtained with WFPC2 on board HST. Using a variety of population synthesis models,…
High-resolution Hubble Space Telescope (\textit{HST}) optical observations have been used to perform the deepest photometric study of the poorly studied Galactic globular cluster NGC 6284. The deep colour-magnitude diagram (CMD) that we…
We present a statistical approach for estimating the age of Globular Clusters by measurement of the likelihood between the observed cluster sequences in the Colour--Magnitude Diagram and the synthetic cluster sequences computed from stellar…
We present a new method to compute stellar ages in Globular Clusters (GC) that is ten times more precise than the traditional isochrone fitting procedure. The method relies on accurate stellar evolutionary tracks and on photometry for GCs…
With the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) on the Hubble Space Telescope, we have discovered in M4 (NGC 6121, C 1620-264) the first extensive sequence of cooling white dwarfs seen in a globular cluster. Adopting a distance modulus of…
In the past 40 years a considerable effort has been focused in determining the age of the Universe at zero redshift using several stellar clocks. In this review I will describe the best theoretical methods to determine the age of the oldest…
Globular Clusters (GCs) in the Milky Way represent the ideal laboratory to establish the age of the oldest stellar populations and to measure the color-magnitude relation of stars. Infrared (IR) photometry of these objects provides a new…