Open clusters: probes of galaxy evolution and bench tests of stellar models

Abstract

Open clusters are the only example of single-age, single initial chemical composition populations in the Galaxy, and they play an important role in the study of the formation and evolution of the Galactic disk. In addition, they have been traditionally employed to test theoretical stellar evolution models. A brief review of constraints/tests of white dwarf models/progenitors, and rotating star models based on Galactic open clusters' observations is presented, introducing also recent contributions of asteroseismic analyses.