The Transition from Disk to Halo as seen from Correlations between Kinematics and Metallicity

Extract

An investigation has been made to determine the relationship between kinematic and chemical properties of stars covering nearly all population types in the Galaxy. For this purpose, a sample has been taken of about 1150 high-galactic-latitude F–K stars down to V = 14.0, for which photoelectric seven-color data in the Vilnius medium-band system were collected at the Maidanak Observatory in Uzbekistan, Central Asia. Combining the obtained photometric material with the proper motion and radial velocity data enabled us to compute kinematic parameters of the sample stars and then to make plots of the galactic orbital eccentricities, angular momenta, and velocity dispersions versus [Fe/H], with much attention drawn to the region where the transition between the thin disk and halo occurs.