We explore the sensitivity in open cluster ages obtained by the lithium depletion boundary ( LDB ) technique to the stellar model input physics .
The LDB age technique is limited to open clusters with ages ranging from 20 to 200 Myr .
Effective 1- \sigma errors in the LDB technique due to uncertain input physics are roughly 3 % at the oldest age increasing to 8 % at the youngest age .
Bolometric correction uncertainties add an additional 10 to 6 % error to the LDB age technique for old and young clusters , respectively .
Rotation rates matching the observed fastest rotators in the Pleiades affect LDB ages by less than 2 % .
The range of rotation rates in an open cluster are expected to “ smear ” the LDB location by only 0.02 mag for a Pleiades age cluster increasing to 0.06 mag for a 20 Myr cluster .
Thus , the observational error of locating the LDB ( \sim 7-10 % ) and the bolometric correction uncertainty currently dominate the error in LDB ages .
For our base case , we formally derive a LDB age of 148 \pm 19 Myr for the Pleiades , where the error includes 8 , 3 , and 9 % contributions from observational , theoretical , and bolometric correction sources , respectively .
A maximally plausible 0.3 magnitude shift in the I-band bolometric correction to reconcile main sequence isochrone fits with the observed ( V-I ) color for the low mass Pleiades members results in an age of 126 \pm 11 Myr , where the error includes observational and theoretical errors only .
Upper main-sequence-fitting ages that do not include convective core overshoot for the Pleiades ( \sim 75 Myr ) are ruled out by the LDB age technique .