Place: 4421 Sterling Hall, Coffee and cookies 3:30 PM. Talk Begins at 3:45 PM
Speaker: Jon Holtzman, Department Head, Astronomy, New Mexico State University
Abstract: The SDSS Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) has collected high resolution near-IR spectra of several hundred thousand stars across the Milky Way. I'll describe some observational results about the spatial variation of chemical abundances as a function of Galactocentric radius and distance from the midplane, discussing mean abundances, metallicity
distribution function, and the variation of abundance ratios of multiple elements. Additional information related to stellar ages can be obtained from [C/N] for red giant stars. Several lines of evidence suggest that radial migration has had a significant impact on the Galactic disk.