Ruprecht 147: The Oldest Nearby Open Cluster as a New Benchmark for Stellar Astrophysics
Abstract
Ruprecht 147 is a hitherto unappreciated open cluster that holds great promise as a standard in fundamental stellar astrophysics. We have conducted a radial velocity survey of astrometric candidates with Lick, Palomar, and MMT observatories and have identified over 100 members, including 5 blue stragglers, 11 red giants, and 5 double-lined spectroscopic binaries (SB2s). We estimate the cluster metallicity from spectroscopic analysis, using Spectroscopy Made Easy (SME), and find it to be [M/H] = +0.07 ± 0.03. We have obtained deep CFHT/MegaCam g'r'i'z' photometry and fit Padova isochrones to the (g' - i') and Two Micron All Sky Survey (J - KS ) color-magnitude diagrams, using the τ2 maximum-likelihood procedure of Naylor, and an alternative method using two-dimensional cross-correlations developed in this work. We find best fits for Padova isochrones at age t = 2.5 ± 0.25 Gyr, m - M = 7.35 ± 0.1, and AV = 0.25 ± 0.05, with additional uncertainty from the unresolved binary population and possibility of differential extinction across this large cluster. The inferred age is heavily dependent on our choice of stellar evolution model: fitting Dartmouth and PARSEC models yield age parameters of 3 Gyr and 3.25 Gyr, respectively. At ~300 pc and ~3 Gyr, Ruprecht 147 is by far the oldest nearby star cluster.
- Publication:
-
The Astronomical Journal
- Pub Date:
- May 2013
- DOI:
- 10.1088/0004-6256/145/5/134
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1206.6533
- Bibcode:
- 2013AJ....145..134C
- Keywords:
-
- open clusters and associations: general;
- open clusters and associations: individual: Ruprecht 147;
- Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- 31 pages, 21 figures, 6 tables. Comments welcome