Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Apr 1990
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1990jrasc..84..107m&link_type=abstract
Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (ISSN 0035-872X), vol. 84, April 1990, p. 107-115.
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Galactic Structure, Globular Clusters, Metallicity, Star Formation, Stellar Composition, Eclipsing Binary Stars, Galactic Evolution, Red Giant Stars, Stellar Mass
Scientific paper
It is usually assumed that the dividing line in metal abundance between the disk and halo of the Galaxy is Fe/H equal to about -1. Evidence is presented here for disk abundances stretching as low as Fe/H = -1.6. This comes from a sample of metal-weak red giants, selected without kinematic bias. In the abundance range of Fe/H values between -1 and -1.6, the predominant group of stars in this sample has a flattened space distribution with a scale height of about 1 kpc, and kinematics similar to those of the 'thick disk'. Such stars were first identified by Norris et al. (1985), and are approximately as common in the solar neighborhood as genuine halo stars. Also, two halo tracers (the globular clusters and the local RR Lyrae variables) do not have such a dominant, rotating sub-population in this abundance range, which strengthens the case for associating the metal-weak red giants with the disk. Thus the halo and disk of the Galaxy have a significant overlap in abundance. Scenarios for Galaxy formation which explain this are discussed.
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