Kinematics of metal-poor stars in the galaxy

We discuss the kinematic properties of a sample of 1936 Galactic stars, selected without kinematic bias, and with abundances (Fe/H) is less than or equal to -0.6. The stars selected for this study all have measured radial velocities, and the majority have abundances determined from spectroscopic or narrow-/intermediate-band photometric techniques. In contrast to previous examinations of the kinematics of the metal-poor stars in the Galaxy, our sample contains large numbers of stars that are located at distances in excess of 1 kpc from the Galactic plane. Thus, a much clearer picture of the nature of the metal-deficient populations in the Galaxy can now be drawn.