The Milky Way Halo Revisited

Abstract

The main goal of this project is to gather all the relevant information concerning the Milky Way Halo and, through the analysis of available databases in the literature and the observation of pre-selected objects, contribute to the understanding of this peculiar Galactic component. Over the last few years, surveys such as the SDSS (Sloan Digital Sky Survey), increased the number of stellar data by orders of magnitude in comparison to the last decade, and its data are changing drastically the current view of the structure of the Galaxy, unveiling components that until now were hidden by the lack of proper statistics. This proposal is supported by the candidate's work and experience acquired during his doctoral studies, that has, as its main outcome, the development of a set of line indices suitable for obtaining carbon abundances estimates, as well as catalogues of carbon enhanced metal-poor stars candidates, whose medium resolution spectroscopy will be a part of observational proposals in medium and big-class telescopes (such as SOAR and Gemini). That will allow the obtention, in the course of this project, along with the carbon abundances, of abundance estimates for other chemical elements, such as neutron-capture elements, which are vital for better understanding the chemical evolution of the Milky Way. In addition, the analysis of the kinematical properties of those objects will also allow the exploration, in greater detail, of the correlations between the various abundance patterns shown by these stars and its possible sites of formation inside the complex structure of the Milky Way.