We describe the motivation, field locations and stellar selection for the ARGOS spectroscopic survey of 28,000 stars in the bulge and inner disk of the Milky Way galaxy across latitudes of b = -5 deg to -10 deg. The primary goal of this survey is to constrain the formation processes of the bulge and establish whether it is predominantly a merger or instability remnant. From the spectra (R = 11,000), we have measured radial velocities and determined stellar parameters, including metallicities and [alpha/Fe] ratios. Distances were estimated from the derived stellar parameters and about 14,000 stars are red giants within 3.5 kpc of the Galactic centre. In this paper, we present the observations and analysis methods. Subsequent papers (III and IV) will discuss the stellar metallicity distribution and kinematics of the Galactic bulge and inner disk, and the implications for the formation of the bulge.
@article{arxiv.1212.1541,
title = {ARGOS II: The Galactic Bulge Survey},
author = {K. Freeman and M. Ness and E. Wylie de Boer and E. Athanassoula and J. Bland Hawthorn and M. Asplund and G. Lewis and D. Yong and R. Lane and L. Kiss and R. Ibata},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1212.1541},
year = {2012}
}
Comments
accepted MNRAS, 13 pages, 10 figures; Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 2012