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Abstract Submitted for the PHY599 Meeting of USB Dept. of Physics and Astronomy The Ages of Stars STEFAN WALTER, Stony Brook University — In my talk I will speak about one of the most fundamental properties of a star, namely its age. The motivation to determine a star’s age is that it allows the study of the time evolution of astronomical phenomena related to stars and their surrounding bodies. I will start with a basic and short description of the Hertzsprung-Russell-Diagram, which allows (together with stellar evolutionary models) an age determination for star clusters, but cannot be applied to isolated (field-) stars. A short description of the ”Isochrone method” for determining a star’s age will be given. Finally a recently developed method, the ”Gyrochronology”, will be explained in detail. If there is time, I will also show a technique based on the decay of uranium and that is used to determine the age of very old stars. References [1] S. Barnes, ApJ 669, 1167-1189 (2007) [2] S. Barnes, ApJ 586, 464-479 (2003) [3] A. Skumanich, ApJ 171, 565-567 (1972) [4] S. Meibom, e-Print arXiv:0812.5078 [astro-ph] (2008) March 25, 2009 Stefan Walter [email protected] Stony Brook University