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

TL;DR

Open clusters serve as crucial tools for understanding galaxy evolution and testing stellar models, providing insights through observations, asteroseismology, and their unique single-age, single-composition nature.

Contribution

The paper reviews how open clusters are used to constrain and test stellar evolution models, including recent advances from asteroseismic data.

Findings

Open clusters are essential for studying Galactic disk evolution.

They provide unique constraints for stellar evolution models.

Recent asteroseismic analyses enhance understanding of stellar physics.

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.