The Bulge Radial Velocity/Abundance Assay

R. Michael Rich
UCLA

ABSTRACT

We report the velocity dispersion profile and rotation curve of the Galactic bulge, based on spectroscopy of ~10,000 red giants using the hydra spectrograph at CTIO. We find that the large scale dynamics of the bulge are consistent with a pure N-body bar. In the Plaut field at (l,b)=0,-8, we report elemental abundances (including the heavy elements) for ~80 red giants. We find puzzling trends in the heavy elements, including some extreme r-process enhanced stars, at high metallicity.