Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Aug 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006noao.prop..531r&link_type=abstract
NOAO Proposal ID #2006B-0531
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
The old, and most metal-poor stars in the halo and thick disk of the Galaxy provide vital clues for unraveling the structure, kinematics, and chemical composition of the early Milky Way. There have been a few extremely successful anaylses of chemical abundances and dynamical motions of such stars, but the spatial scales have mostly been limited to include only a few kpc from the Sun since most of them are dwarfs and sub-giants identified in bright magnitude-limited samples. This can only be resolved by increasing the number of identified very metal-poor (VMP) giants, which are intrinsically luminous, over a range of depths. We propose to carry out medium-resolution spectroscopic follow-up for VMP giant candidates selected from quantitative inspection of the GALEX grism UV spectra in two fields. This pencil beam study of some 900 VMP giants as faint as B ~ 19 (up to 30 kpc from the Sun) will permit us to determine the metallicity distribution function of the halo and thick disk as functions of Z and R. Radial velocities determined from this work, combined with proper motions from ongoing and future astrometric surveys will provide full space motions for extremely old stars. This huge data set of VMP stars will help reveal the early nucleosynthesis, stellar dynamics, and substructure of the Milky Way.
Laget Michel
Lee Young-Wook
Rhee Jaehyon
Rhee Jonghwan
Rich Robert Michael
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