Age and Mass for 920 LMC Clusters Derived from 100 Million Monte Carlo
  Simulations
  We present new age and mass estimates for 920 stellar clusters in the Large
Magellanic Cloud (LMC) based on previously published broad-band photometry and
the stellar cluster analysis package, MASSCLEANage. Expressed in the generic
fitting formula, d^{2}N/dM dt ~ M^{\alpha} t^{\beta}, the distribution of
observed clusters is described by \alpha = -1.5 to -1.6 and \beta = -2.1 to
-2.2. For 288 of these clusters, ages have recently been determined based on
stellar photometric color-magnitude diagrams, allowing us to gauge the
confidence of our ages. The results look very promising, opening up the
possibility that this sample of 920 clusters, with reliable and consistent age,
mass and photometric measures, might be used to constrain important
characteristics about the stellar cluster population in the LMC. We also
investigate a traditional age determination method that uses a \chi^2
minimization routine to fit observed cluster colors to standard infinite mass
limit simple stellar population models. This reveals serious defects in the
derived cluster age distribution using this method. The traditional \chi^2
minimization method, due to the variation of U,B,V,R colors, will always
produce an overdensity of younger and older clusters, with an underdensity of
clusters in the log(age/yr)=[7.0,7.5] range. Finally, we present a unique
simulation aimed at illustrating and constraining the fading limit in observed
cluster distributions that includes the complex effects of stochastic
variations in the observed properties of stellar clusters.
