Star luminosity function as an age indicator for the Dwarf spheroidal Leo I

Abstract

Star luminosity function, already recognized as an age indicator for old galactic globular clusters, can be used to contrains the age of younger stellar systems like the nearby dwarfs spheroidal Leo I. We compare the observed luminosity function of Leo I, presented by Lee et al. 1993, with theoretical expectations for three selected ages, 1, 1.5 and 2 billion years, deriving an age of about 1.5 Gyr. This result does not appear critically affected by assumptions about the cluster distance modulus or the Initial Mass Function.

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