New age-metallicity diagnostic diagram for the Washington photometric system

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new age-metallicity diagnostic diagram using Washington photometry, enabling simultaneous estimation of star cluster ages and metallicities with high accuracy, overcoming previous limitations.

Contribution

The authors develop a novel deltaT1 versus deltaC diagnostic diagram that accurately estimates ages and metallicities of star clusters from 1 to 13 Gyr and -2.0 to +0.5 dex metallicity.

Findings

The new diagram effectively disentangles age and metallicity effects.

It provides accurate estimates independent of reddening and distance.

It surpasses previous methods in reliability and range.

Abstract

The age calibration of the Washington deltaT1 index is mainly used to estimate ages of star clusters older than 1 Gyr, no age-metallicity degeneracy effect is considered. We have profusely exploited synthetic T1 versus C-T1 colour magnitude diagrams aiming at exploring the intrinsic behaviour of the deltaT1 index. The analysis shows that deltaT1 varies with age and metal content as well. In general, the dependence on age weakens for ages greater than ~ 6 Gyr, and results even less sensitive to age as the metallicity decreases. For ages younger than ~ 5 Gyr deltaT1 shows a strong correlation with both age and metallicity. The deltaC index -defined as deltaT1 for the C passband- is also a combined measurement of age and metallicity. We introduce a new age-metallicity diagnostic diagram, deltaT1 versus deltaC - deltaT1, which has shown the ability of unambiguously providing age and metallicity estimates, simultaneously. The new procedure allows to derive ages from 1 up to 13 Gyr and metallicities [Fe/H] from -2.0 up to +0.5 dex, and is independent of the cluster reddening and distance modulus. It does solve the constraints found in the deltaT1 index and surpasses the performance of the standard giant branch metallicity method. All these features make the diagnostic diagram a powerful tool for estimating accurate ages as well as metallicities.