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The Similarity of the Halo Field K Giant Population by the Globular Cluster System of our Galaxy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2016

Kavan U. Ratnatunga*
Affiliation:
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton

Extract

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Line-of-sight velocities and improved metal abundance estimates are available for a representative sample of 58 giants located by an objective prism survey (Ratnatunga and Freeman 1985), in a 20 square degree field near SA 127 (1 = 272, b = +39). These in-situ K-giants of the outer regions of our galactic halo give a direct comparison of the field population with the globular cluster system. Fig. 1 illustrates the distribution of line-of-sight velocity with abundance for the sample of giant stars in SA 127. The mean and dispersion of the sample appears to be discontinuous at [FeH] ~ −0.8. Fig. 2 shows the distribution of [Fe/H] with distance from the Sun for the same stars. The metal stronger giants (filled symbols) represent a population of stars up to 6 kpc above the plane of the disk and have a velocity dispersion of about 50 km/s. In contrast, the metal weaker giants have a typical halo dispersion of about 120 km/s.

Type
Chapter VII. Poster Papers on Harlow Shapley and Globular Clusters in the Milky Way
Copyright
Copyright © Kluwer 1988 

References

REFERENCES

Bahcall, J. N., Ratnatunga, K. U., Buser, R., Fenkart, R. P. and Spaenhauer, A. 1985 Astrophys. J. 299, 616.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ratnatunga, K. U. and Freeman, K. C. 1985 Astrophys. J. 291, 260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar