RAVE and the galactic thick disk

Gilmore, G. and Seabroke, G. (2004). RAVE and the galactic thick disk. In: Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 9-13 Jan 2005, 1582-+.

URL: http://drupal.aas.org/archives/BAAS/v36n5/aas205/7...

Abstract

RAVE (RAdial Velocity Experiment) is an ambitious international collaboration (PI: Matthias Steinmetz), using 6dF on the 1.2-m UK Schmidt Telescope at the Anglo-Australian Observatory, measuring the radial velocities, metallicities and abundance ratios of a large sample of stars (9 < I < 12) over the southern and equatorial sky. The RAVE observing campaign began in April 2003 and to date 50,000 spectra have been obtained. We are analysing RAVE's first year unpublished data (30,000 stars) specifically to quantify the kinematics of the Galactic thick disk. We present our first RAVE statistical study of the local thick disk, using reduced proper motion diagrams in addition to our radial velocity data.