# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Open clusters are one of the main available laboratories in Astronomy. Among other things, the stellar evolutionary age scale relies primarily on them, so it is extremely important to estimate accurately the ages of different associations. Until now, the dating of clusters was based on either the Upper Main Sequence (MS), using stars evolving off it or already well beyond the turn–off point, or isochrone fitting. These techniques are model dependent and provide different ages for the same cluster. Very Low Mass Stars (VLM) and Brown Dwarfs (BDs) offer an alternative: It is well known that the lithium abundance is depleted with the age in stars (see the review by Balachandran 1994). This destruction depends also on mass, so dM stars deplete their lithium even before they arrive to the MS. However, the internal part of VLM/BDs is not hot enough to destroy lithium at this stage. In the lower part of the cluster MS, the border between members having no lithium and those showing it in their atmosphere is called the lithium depletion boundary (LDB). As a cluster gets older, the LDB moves toward less massive objects. Therefore, the detection of lithium in the brightest (e.g. bluer, hotter and more massive than others) BDs of a cluster puts a very strong limit on its age (D’Antona & Mazzitelli 1994; Martín & Montes 1997; Ventura et al. 1998). In this paper, we show how this technique works and apply it to several young open clusters. 

## 2 Identification of candidate members: Optical and IR surveys

The initial step in order to identify new very low mass (VLM) stars and BDs has been to obtain optical photometry on the area around the cluster. In order to cover a significat fraction of a particular cluster in a reasonable amount of time, we have used in most of the cases detectors with several CCDs. Our targets have been:   
i) The Pleiades.- We have used the CFHT (with the MOSAIC camera) and 48” telescope at MHO. We surveyed 2.5 and 1 sq. deg., respectively, discovering 17 and 6 BDs candidates in each survey (Bouvier et al. 1998; Stauffer et al. 1998a).   
ii) $`\alpha `$ Per.- As a preliminary survey, we collected RI photometry with the 48” telescope at MHO. We discovered several candidates. Some of them were the targets of a spectroscopic campaign (next section).   
iii) IC 2391.- The CTIO 4m telescope and the BTC camera allowed us to survey 2 sq. deg., detecting $``$40 BDs candidates (Barrado y Navascués et al. 1999a). See Fig. 1a.   
iv) M35.- CFHT$`+`$MOSAIC: This is a very well populated open cluster. Our study included several thousands candidates (stars) and few possible BD (Barrado y Navascués et al. 1999b).   
v) NGC 2516.- CTIO 4m telescope $`+`$ BTC. We covered 0.6 sq. deg., analysis in progress.

Since most of the lists of cluster candidates contain spurious members, it is necessary to select good candidates by obtaining near IR photometry. We have collected this information using the MHO 48” telescope and the NASA IRTF, in the case of the Pleiades. JHK photometry on the area around IC 2391 was obtained by the 2MASS project. All this information allowed us to construct robust lists of possible members. Figure 1b displays a Color-Magnitude diagram of IC 2391, and a comparison with previous surveys. A 30 Myr isochrone (solid line) and a Zero Age MS (dashed line) are included.

## 3 Spectroscopy: membership and the new age

Since these objects are too faint to have been detected with photographic plates in the past, most of them do not have measurements of their proper motions. Therefore, the final confirmation of membership comes from the spectroscopy. A intermediate resolution spectra (R=2000–5000) are good enough to obtain rough radial velocities (hence, establishing whether the target is a member). On the other hand, a detection of LiI 6708 Å reveals the BD nature of the candidate and also confirms the membership (Rebolo 1991). Using the Keck II telescope and the LRIS spectrograph we have collected spectra of VLM and BD candidates in the Pleiades and $`\alpha `$ Per open clusters. Figure 2a shows the spectrum of PER 32, a BD candidate discovered in the $`\alpha `$ Per region with the 48” MHO. The intense H$`\alpha `$ line in emission and its radial velocity indicates that it is a real member of the cluster. However, we have not detected lithium, which indicates that this is a VLM star close to the LDB.

Figure 2b illustrates how ages are estimated. Following Stauffer et al. (1998b), the faintest member without lithium and the brightest member with it, bracket the magnitude of the LDB. We used the Chabrier & Baraffe (1998) latest evolutionary model to covert these magnitudes, different for the Pleiades and $`\alpha `$ Per, into their corresponding ages. If the sampling is well done, the accuracy is better than 10%.

Figure 3 shows the old standard ages for the 5 clusters included in our study, together the new values for the Pleiades and $`\alpha `$ Per, which are significantly older than the values previously accepted. Our aim is to improve these values and to get new ones for the other clusters in the near future, in order to verify this interesting possibility. This would have a very important effect on several fields, including the time scale of properties of low mass stars (lithium abundance, rotation, stellar activity), pre-main sequence stars, and internal structure and evolutionary models.