Nucleocosmochronology
Ages of the oldest populations using radioactive elements - impact on cosmological parameters
Nucleocosmochronology provides and alternative, model-independent method to measure the ages of the oldest stars; this, in turn, allows a lower limit on the age of the Universe to be derived with implications on cosmological paremeters. By measuring the abundances of radioactive isotopes like uranium and thorium in stars, and comparing them with stable isotopes, like europium, we can estimate their ages and place limits on the Universe's age. In particular, HRMOS will be highly suited to efficiently derive the ages of globular clusters, being a MOS spectrograph. This approach will provide independent constraints, free from stellar model dependencies, and offers valuable insights into the ages of the oldest stellar populations, refining our understanding of the Universe's formation and evolution while enhancing the precision of cosmological models.