Globular Cluster Ages and Stromgren CCD Photometry

Abstract

Stromgren uvby CCD photometry can be used in a variety of ways to constrain the absolute and relative ages of globular clusters. The reddening corrected (v-y, c1) diagram offers the means to derive ages that are completely independent of distance. Very precise differential ages for clusters of the same chemical composition may also be determined from such 2-color plots, or from measurements of the magnitude difference, Delta_u, between the subgiant and horizontal branches on the $u-y, u$ plane (where both of these features are flat and well-defined, even for clusters like M13 that have extremely blue HBs on the (B-V, V) diagram). Based on high-quality photometry we find that: (1) M92 is 15 Gyr old, (2) M3 and M13 differ in age by < 1 Gyr, and (3) NGC 288, NGC 362, and NGC 1851 are coeval to within ~1.5 Gyr. These results strongly suggest that age cannot be the only ``second parameter&#39;&#39;. Finally, we suggest that the observed variations in c1 among giant branch stars in all the metal-poor clusters that we have studied so far are likely due to star-to-star C and N abundance variations, and potentially indicate that most (if not all) globular clusters have ``primordial&#39;&#39; variations in at least these elements.