What drives the evolution of the Milky Way’s disk?

Fri, February 20, 2015

Observations of the structure and dynamics of different stellar populations in the Milky Way’s disk provide a unique perspective on disk formation, evolution, and dynamics. I will review our current knowledge of the chemo-orbital structure of the disk. I will then discuss new measurements of the kinematics and chemistry of intermediate-age stars over a large part of the Galactic disk from the APOGEE survey and the new insights these measurements provide about the formation and evolution of the disk. I will also look forward to how the large data sets coming soon from the Gaia space mission and other large spectroscopic surveys will provide a finer-grained picture of how the Milky Way evolved.