The Outer Regions of the Galactic Bulge:II Analysis

Abstract

We analyse velocity, chemical abundance and spatial distribution data for some 1500 K- and M- giants in the Galactic Bulge. The bulge has a well-determined linear rotation curve over the range $700pc\le \mathrm{R}\le 3500pc$ with amplitude $\sim 25km{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}\mathrm{kp}{\mathrm{c}}^{-1}$. The oblate isotropic bulge model of Kent (1992) is in reasonable agreement with our data. We do not find a significant requirement for asymmetry or a bar. The metallicity distribution of K giants in a subset of our fields, using the Mg$b$ feature, has mean $[Fe/H]\approx -0.3$ with no variation. That is, there is no detectable abundance gradient in the Galactic bulge over the galactocentric range $500pc\le {\mathrm{R}}_{\mathrm{GC}}\le 3500pc$. We derive the distribution function of specific angular momentum for the bulge from our data, and compare it with determinations for the halo, the thick disk and the thin disk from Wyse & Gilmore (1992). We confirm that the bulge and the halo have angular momentum distributions which are indistinguishable, as do the thick disk and the thin disk. The bulge-halo distribution is however very different from the thick disk-thin disk distribution. This is perhaps the strongest available clue to the evolutionary relationships between different Galactic structural components.

MNRAS in press, 23pp incl figures, uuencoded, tarred, compressed

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