AGES OF GLOBULAR-CLUSTERS - BREAKING THE AGE-DISTANCE DEGENERACY WITHTHE LUMINOSITY FUNCTION

We extend our previous method to determine globular cluster (GC) ages using the luminosity function (Jimenez & Padoan). This method provides at the same time independent determinations of distance and age of a GC, by simply counting the number of stars found inside specified lumi nosity bins. The main uncertainties in other traditional methods for d etermining GC ages are absent (e.g., mixing length, color-T-eff calibr ation, morphology of the color-magnitude diagram). If GC stellar count s with statistical errors not larger than 3% are available, the age ca n be determined with an uncertainty of about 0.5 Gyr, and the distance modulus with an uncertainty of about 0.06 mag.