We employ measurements of the [alpha/Fe] ratio derived from low-resolution (R~2000) spectra of 17,277 G-type dwarfs from the SEGUE survey to separate them into likely thin- and thick-disk subsamples. Both subsamples exhibit strong gradients of orbita
l rotational velocity with metallicity, of opposite signs, -20 to -30 km/s/dex for the thin-disk and +40 to +50 km/s/dex for the thick-disk population. The rotational velocity is uncorrelated with Galactocentric distance for the thin-disk subsample, and exhibits a small trend for the thick-disk subsample. The rotational velocity decreases with distance from the plane for both disk components, with similar slopes (-9.0 {pm} 1.0 km/s/kpc). Thick-disk stars exhibit a strong trend of orbital eccentricity with metallicity (about -0.2/dex), while the eccentricity does not change with metallicity for the thin-disk subsample. The eccentricity is almost independent of Galactocentric radius for the thin-disk population, while a marginal gradient of the eccentricity with radius exists for the thick-disk population. Both subsamples possess similar positive gradients of eccentricity with distance from the Galactic plane. The shapes of the eccentricity distributions for the thin- and thick-disk populations are independent of distance from the plane, and include no significant numbers of stars with eccentricity above 0.6. Among several contemporary models of disk evolution we consider, radial migration appears to have played an important role in the evolution of the thin-disk population, but possibly less so for the thick disk, relative to the gas-rich merger or disk heating scenarios. We emphasize that more physically realistic models and simulations need to be constructed in order to carry out the detailed quantitative comparisons that our new data enable.
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) started a new phase in August 2008, with new instrumentation and new surveys focused on Galactic structure and chemical evolution, measurements of the baryon oscillation feature in the clustering of galaxies and th
e quasar Ly alpha forest, and a radial velocity search for planets around ~8000 stars. This paper describes the first data release of SDSS-III (and the eighth counting from the beginning of the SDSS). The release includes five-band imaging of roughly 5200 deg^2 in the Southern Galactic Cap, bringing the total footprint of the SDSS imaging to 14,555 deg^2, or over a third of the Celestial Sphere. All the imaging data have been reprocessed with an improved sky-subtraction algorithm and a final, self-consistent photometric recalibration and flat-field determination. This release also includes all data from the second phase of the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and Evolution (SEGUE-2), consisting of spectroscopy of approximately 118,000 stars at both high and low Galactic latitudes. All the more than half a million stellar spectra obtained with the SDSS spectrograph have been reprocessed through an improved stellar parameters pipeline, which has better determination of metallicity for high metallicity stars.
We determine photometric metal abundance estimates for individual main-sequence stars in the Virgo Overdensity (VOD), which covers almost 1000 deg^2 on the sky, based on a calibration of the metallicity sensitivity of stellar isochrones in the gri fi
lter passbands using field stars with well-determined spectroscopic metal abundances. Despite the low precision of the method for individual stars, we derive [Fe/H] = -2.0 +/-0.1 (internal) +/-0.5 (systematic) for the metal abundance of the VOD from photometric measurements of 0.7 million stars in the Northern Galactic hemisphere with heliocentric distances from ~10 kpc to ~20 kpc. The metallicity of the VOD is indistinguishable, within Delta [Fe/H] < 0.2, from that of field halo stars covering the same distance range. This initial application suggests that the SDSS gri passbands can be used to probe the properties of main-sequence stars beyond ~10 kpc, complementing studies of nearby stars from more metallicity-sensitive color indices that involve the u passband.
We perform an extensive test of theoretical stellar models for main-sequence stars in ugriz, using cluster fiducial sequences obtained in the previous paper of this series. We generate a set of isochrones using the Yale Rotating Evolutionary Code (YR
EC) with updated input physics, and derive magnitudes and colors in ugriz from MARCS model atmospheres. These models match cluster main sequences over a wide range of metallicity within the errors of the adopted cluster parameters. However, we find a large discrepancy of model colors at the lower main sequence (Teff < ~4500 K) for clusters at and above solar metallicity. We also reach similar conclusions using the theoretical isochrones of Girardi et al. and Dotter et al., but our new models are generally in better agreement with the data. Using our theoretical isochrones, we also derive main-sequence fitting distances and turn-off ages for five key globular clusters, and demonstrate the ability to derive these quantities from photometric data in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. In particular, we exploit multiple color indices (g - r, g - i, and g - z) in the parameter estimation, which allows us to evaluate internal systematic errors. Our distance estimates, with an error of sigma(m - M) = 0.03-0.11 mag for individual clusters, are consistent with Hipparcos-based subdwarf fitting distances derived in the Johnson-Cousins or Stromgren photometric systems.
