Exploring the Bottom End of the White Dwarf Cooling Sequence in the Galactic Open Cluster NGC2158
Abstract
The recent discovery by our group of an unexpectedly bright and still unexplained peak in the white dwarf {WD} luminosity function {LF} of the metal rich, old open cluster NGC6791 casts serious doubts on our understanding of the physical process which rules the formation and the cooling of WDs. In order to investigate whether the same problem is present in other open clusters with different ages and metallicities, we propose deep ACS/HST observations reaching the bottom end of the WD LFs, for the first time in a young and so popolous Galactic open cluster: NGC2158.
- Publication:
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HST Proposal
- Pub Date:
- July 2005
- Bibcode:
- 2005hst..prop10500B