The Arcturus Moving Group: Its Place in the Galaxy

Understand

The Arcturus moving group is a well-populated example of phase space substructure within the thick disk of our Galaxy.

• Traditionally regarded as the remains of a dissolved open cluster, it has recently been suggested to be a remnant of a satellite accreted by our Galaxy.
• To investigate the origin of the group we undertook a high-resolution spectroscopic abundance study of Arcturus group members and candidates.
• Examining abundance of Fe, Mg, Ca, Ti, Cr, Ni, Zn, Ce, Nd, Sm and Gd for 134 stars we found that the group is chemically similar to disk stars and does not exhibit a clear chemical homogeneity.