
Thomas Bensby
Senior lecturer

The radial extent of the Galactic thick disk
Author
Summary, in English
Based on observational data from the fourth internal data release of the Gaia-ESO Survey we probe the abundance structure in the Milky Way stellar disk as a function of galactocentric radius and height above the plane. We find that the inner and outer Galactic disks have different chemical signatures. The stars in the inner Galactic disk show abundance signatures of both the thin and thick disks, while the stars in the outer Galactic disk resemble in majority the abundances seen in the thin disk. Assuming that the Galactic thick disk can be associated with the α-enriched population, this can be interpreted as that the thick disk density drops drastically beyond a galactocentric radius of about 10Â kpc. This is in agreement with recent findings that the thick disk has a short scale-length, shorter than that of the the thin disk.
Department/s
- Lund Observatory
Publishing year
2016-03-01
Language
English
Pages
3-5
Publication/Series
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union
Volume
11
Issue
S321
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Topic
- Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
Keywords
- Galaxy: Abundances
- Galaxy: disk
- Galaxy: evolution
- Galaxy: structure
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1743-9213