The Metallicity Distribution Function of the Halo of the Milky Way

Beers, Timothy C.; Christlieb, Norbert; Norris, John E.; Bessell, Michael S.; Wilhelm, Ronald; Allende Prieto, Carlos; Yanny, Brian; Rockosi, Constance; Newberg, Heidi Jo; Rossi, Silvia; Lee, Young Sun
Bibliographical reference

From Lithium to Uranium: Elemental Tracers of Early Cosmic Evolution, IAU Symposium Proceedings of the international Astronomical Union 228, Held in Paris, France, May 23-27, 2005. edited by Hill, V.; François, P.; Primas, F. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005., pp.175-183

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2005
Number of authors
11
IAC number of authors
0
Citations
23
Refereed citations
18
Description
We report on the distribution of metallicities, [Fe/H], for very metal-poor stars in the halo of the Galaxy. Although the primary information on the nature of the Metallicity Distribution Function (MDF) is obtained from the two major recent surveys for metal-poor stars, the HK survey of Beers and collaborators, and the Hamburg/ESO Survey of Christlieb and collaborators, we also discuss the MDF derived from the publicly available database of stellar spectra and photometry contained in the third data release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS DR-3). Even though the SDSS was not originally planned as a stellar survey, significant numbers of stars have been observed to date - DR-3 contains spectroscopy for over 70,000 stars, at least half of which are suitable for abundance determinations. There are as many very metal-poor ([Fe/H] ) stars in DR-3 as have been obtained from all previous survey efforts combined. We also discuss prospects for significant expansion of the list of metal-poor stars to be obtained from the recently funded extension of the SDSS, which includes the project SEGUE: Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Evolution.