Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-13T02:39:50.471Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Wide Binaries and the Age of the Galaxy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 May 2016

T.D. Oswalt ,
J.A. Smith  and
M.A. Wood
T.D. Oswalt
Affiliation:
Florida Institute of Technology Department of Physics and Space Sciences Melbourne, Florida 32901 USA [email protected]
J.A. Smith
Affiliation:
Florida Institute of Technology Department of Physics and Space Sciences Melbourne, Florida 32901 USA [email protected]
M.A. Wood
Affiliation:
Florida Institute of Technology Department of Physics and Space Sciences Melbourne, Florida 32901 USA [email protected]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Using B, V, R, I photometric parallaxes for components of wide binaries, new bolometric corrections by Bergeron et al. (1995) and cooling curves by Wood (1995), we have determined the white dwarf luminosity function (WDLF; Oswalt et al. 1996). A minimum age of 9.5+1.1−0.8 Gyr is implied for the Galactic disk; arbitrarily old models are consistent at the +2σ level. Smith (1997) confirms these results using a much larger sample and similar methodology. Using these same new models, Wood & Oswalt (1997) show that the WDLF of Liebert et al. (1988) yields an age of 7.5+0.5−0.5 Gyr, more than 20% younger than their original estimate.

Type
III. Galaxy Formation and Evolution
Information
Symposium - International Astronomical Union , Volume 183: Cosmological Parameters and the Evolution of the Universe , 1999 , pp. 162
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1999 

References

Bergeron, P., Saumon, D., Wesemael, F. 1995, ApJ 443, 764.Google Scholar
Chaboyer, B., Demarque, P., Kenran, P. Krauss, L. 1997, ApJ, in press.Google Scholar
Liebert, J., Dahn, C., Monet, D. 1988, ApJ 332, 891.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oswalt, T., Smith, J., Wood, M. 1996, Nature (Letters) 382, 692.Google Scholar
Smith, J.A. 1997, , .Google Scholar
Wood, M. 1995, in White Dwarfs, ed. Koester, & Werner, , (Springer), p.41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, M., Oswalt, T. 1997 ApJ, in press (preprints: http://pss.fit.edu/astro.html).Google Scholar