This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
Two major surveys of Galactic field halo stars will be carried out in order to illuminate and constrain models of early chemical evolution in the Milky Way Galaxy. In one, a detailed study of high resolution spectra of over 100 stars with known space motions and metallicities less than 1/300 that of the sun will be undertaken, with the goal of discovering abundance trends with kinematic properties of the stars. The second is a comprehensive survey of very evolved so-called horizontal branch stars using multi-object spectra of about 10 globular clusters.
The Broader Impacts of this program include dissemination of computer codes and atomic line data to the astronomical community, and participation in a program involving secondary school teachers.
