Field K giants in Galactic halo. II - Improved abundance and kinematic parameters

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Abstract

A survey for distant in situ field K giants in the Galactic halo has been expanded to include more stars with intermediate abundances. An autocorrelation index which measures the integrated strength of many weak metal lines in slit spectra is described and shown to be a more reliable measure of abundance than the Ca II index used by Ratnatunga and Freeman (1985). The stellar sample now appears to separate into two components with clearly different chemical and kinematical properties: (1) a metal-weak halo component which is at most slowly rotating and is seen out to about 15 kpc from the Galactic plane in the sample and (2) a metal-stronger thick disk component which extends up to about 5 kpc from the plane, rotates with the disk, and has a line-of-sight velocity dispersion of about 50 km/s.

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