arXiv subjects

M. Haywood

Publications and source records attributed to M. Haywood.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Stellar metallicity variations across spiral arms in disk galaxies with multiple populations

This letter studies the formation of azimuthal metallicity variations in the disks of spiral galaxies in the absence of initial radial metallicity gradients. Using high-resolution $N$-body simulations, we model composite stellar discs, made of kinematically cold and hot stellar populations, and study their response to spiral arm perturbations. We find that, as expected, disk populations with different kinematics respond differently to a spiral perturbation, with the tendency for dynamically cooler populations to show a larger fractional contribution to spiral arms than dynamically hotter populations. By assuming a relation between kinematics and metallicity, namely the hotter the population, the more metal-poor it is, this differential response to the spiral arm perturbations naturally leads to azimuthal variations in the mean metallicity of stars in the simulated disk. Thus, azimuthal variations in the mean metallicity of stars across a spiral galaxy are not necessarily a consequence of the reshaping, by radial migration, of an initial radial metallicity gradient. They indeed arise naturally also in stellar disks which have initially only a negative vertical metallicity gradient.

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arXiv2017

What the Milky Way bulge reveals about the initial metallicity gradients in the disc

We examine the metallicity trends in the Milky Way (MW) bulge - using APOGEE DR13 data - and explore their origin by comparing two N-body models of isolated galaxies which develop a bar and a boxy/peanut (b/p) bulge. Both models have been proposed as scenarios for reconciling a disc origin of the MW bulge with a negative vertical metallicity gradient. The first model is a superposition of co-spatial, i.e. overlapping, disc populations with different scaleheights, kinematics and metallicities. In this model the thick, metal-poor, and centrally concentrated disc populations contribute significantly to the stellar mass budget in the inner galaxy. The second model is a single disc with an initial steep radial metallicity gradient, which is mapped by the bar into the b/p bulge in such a way that the vertical metallicity gradient of the MW bulge is reproduced -- as shown already in previous works in the literature. However, as we show here, the latter model does not reproduce the positive longitudinal metallicity gradient of the inner disc, nor the metal-poor innermost regions of the Bulge seen in the data. On the other hand, the model with co-spatial thin and thick disc populations reproduces all the aforementioned trends. We therefore see that it is possible to reconcile a (primarily) disc origin for the MW bulge with the observed trends in metallicity by mapping the inner thin and thick discs of the MW into a b/p. For this scenario to reproduce the observations, the $α$-enhanced, metal-poor, thick disc populations must have a significant mass contribution in the inner regions -- as has been suggested for the Milky Way.

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arXiv2017

Bar quenching in gas-rich galaxies

Galaxy surveys have suggested that rapid and sustained decrease in the star-formation rate, "quenching", in massive disk galaxies is frequently related to the presence of a bar. Optical and near-IR observations reveal that nearly 60% of disk galaxies in the local universe are barred, thus it is important to understand the relationship between bars and star formation in disk galaxies. Recent observational results imply that the Milky Way quenched about 9-10 Gyr ago, at the transition between the cessation of the growth of the kinematically hot, old, metal-poor thick disk and the kinematically colder, younger, and more metal-rich thin disk. Although perhaps coincidental, the quenching episode could also be related to the formation of the bar. To explore the relation between bar formation and star formation in gas rich galaxies quantitatively, we simulated gas-rich disk isolated galaxies. Our simulations include prescriptions for star formation, stellar feedback, and for regulating the multi-phase interstellar medium. We find that the action of stellar bar efficiently quenches star formation, reducing the star-formation rate by a factor of 10 in less than 1 Gyr. Analytical and self-consistent galaxy simulations with bars suggest that the action of the stellar bar increases the gas random motions within the co-rotation radius of the bar. Indeed, we detect an increase in the gas velocity dispersion up to 20-35 km/s at the end of the bar formation phase. The star-formation efficiency decreases rapidly, and in all of our models, the bar quenches the star formation in the galaxy. The star-formation efficiency is much lower in simulated barred compared to unbarred galaxies and more rapid bar formation implies more rapid quenching.

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arXiv2017

Effects of the selection function on metallicity trends in spectroscopic surveys of the Milky Way

We investigate here the effect of the selection function on the metallicity distribution function (MDF) and on the vertical metallicity gradient by studying similar lines of sight using four different spectroscopic surveys (APOGEE, LAMOST, RAVE, and Gaia-ESO), which have different targeting strategies and therefore different selection functions. We use common fields between the spectroscopic surveys of APOGEE, LAMOST, RAVE (ALR) and APOGEE, RAVE, Gaia-ESO (AGR) and use two stellar population synthesis models, GALAXIA and TRILEGAL, to create mock fields for each survey. We apply the selection function in the form of colour and magnitude cuts of the respective survey to the mock fields to replicate the observed source sample. We make a basic comparison between the models to check which best reproduces the observed sample distribution. We carry out a quantitative comparison between the synthetic MDF from the mock catalogues using both models to understand the effect of the selection function on the MDF and on the vertical metallicity gradient. Using both models, we find a negligible effect of the selection function on the MDF for APOGEE, LAMOST, and RAVE. We find a negligible selection function effect on the vertical metallicity gradients as well, though GALAXIA and TRILEGAL have steeper and shallower slopes, respectively, than the observed gradient. After applying correction terms on the metallicities of RAVE and LAMOST with respect to our reference APOGEE sample, our observed vertical metallicity gradients between the four surveys are consistent within 1-sigma. We also find consistent gradient for the combined sample of all surveys in ALR and AGR. We estimated a mean vertical metallicity gradient of -0.241+/-0.028 dex kpc-1. There is a significant scatter in the estimated gradients in the literature, but our estimates are within their ranges.

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arXiv2017

PLATO as it is: a legacy mission for Galactic archaeology

Deciphering the assembly history of the Milky Way is a formidable task, which becomes possible only if one can produce high-resolution chrono-chemo-kinematical maps of the Galaxy. Data from large-scale astrometric and spectroscopic surveys will soon provide us with a well-defined view of the current chemo-kinematical structure of the Milky Way, but will only enable a blurred view on the temporal sequence that led to the present-day Galaxy. As demonstrated by the (ongoing) exploitation of data from the pioneering photometric missions CoRoT, Kepler, and K2, asteroseismology provides the way forward: solar-like oscillating giants are excellent evolutionary clocks thanks to the availability of seismic constraints on their mass and to the tight age-initial-mass relation they adhere to. In this paper we identify five key outstanding questions relating to the formation and evolution of the Milky Way that will need precise and accurate ages for large samples of stars to be addressed, and we identify the requirements in terms of number of targets and the precision on the stellar properties that are needed to tackle such questions. By quantifying the asteroseismic yields expected from PLATO for red-giant stars, we demonstrate that these requirements are within the capabilities of the current instrument design, provided that observations are sufficiently long to identify the evolutionary state and allow robust and precise determination of acoustic-mode frequencies. This will allow us to harvest data of sufficient quality to reach a 10% precision in age. This is a fundamental pre-requisite to then reach the more ambitious goal of a similar level of accuracy, which will only be possible if we have to hand a careful appraisal of systematic uncertainties on age deriving from our limited understanding of stellar physics, a goal which conveniently falls within the main aims of PLATO's core science.

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arXiv2017

Bars & boxy/peanut bulges in thin & thick discs: I. Morphology and line-of-sight velocities of a fiducial model

We explore trends in the morphology and line-of-sight (los) velocity of stellar populations in the inner regions of disc galaxies, using N-body simulations with both a thin (kinematically cold) and a thick (kinematically hot) disc which form a bar and boxy/peanut (b/p) bulge. The bar in the thin disc component is $\sim$50\% stronger than the thick disc bar and is more elongated, with an axis ratio almost half that of the thick disc bar. The thin disc b/p bulge has a pronounced X-shape, while the thick disc b/p is weaker with a rather boxy shape. This leads to the signature of the b/p bulge in the thick disc to be weaker and further away from the plane than in the thin disc. Regarding the kinematics, we find that the los velocity of thick disc stars in the outer parts of the b/p bulge can be \emph{larger} than that of thin disc stars, by up to 40\% and 20\% for side-on and Milky Way-like orientations of the bar respectively. This is due to the different orbits followed by thin and thick disc stars in the bar-b/p region, which are affected by the fact that: i) thin disc stars are trapped more efficiently in the bar - b/p instability and thus lose more angular momentum than their thick disc counterparts and ii) thick disc stars have large radial excursions and therefore stars from large radii with high angular momenta can be found in the bar region. We also find that the difference between the los velocities of the thin and thick disc in the b/p bulge ($Δv_{los}$) correlates with the initial difference between the radial velocity dispersions of the two discs ($Δσ$) . We therefore conclude that stars in the bar - b/p bulge will have considerably different morphologies and kinematics depending on the kinematic properties of the disc population they originate from.

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arXiv2016

On the kinematic detection of accreted streams in the Gaia era: a cautionary tale

The $Λ$CDM cosmological scenario predicts that our Galaxy should contain hundreds of stellar streams at the solar vicinity, fossil relics of the merging history of the Milky Way and more generally of the hierarchical growth of galaxies. Because of the mixing time scales in the inner Galaxy, it has been claimed that these streams should be difficult to detect in configuration space but can still be identifiable in kinematic-related spaces like the energy/angular momenta spaces, E-Lz and Lperp-Lz, or spaces of orbital/velocity parameters. By means of high-resolution, dissipationless N-body simulations, containing between 25$\times10^6$ and 35$\times10^6$ particles, we model the accretion of a series of up to four 1:10 mass ratio satellites then up to eight 1:100 satellites and we search systematically for the signature of these accretions in these spaces. In all spaces considered (1) each satellite gives origin to several independent overdensities; (2) overdensities of multiple satellites overlap; (3) satellites of different masses can produce similar substructures; (4) the overlap between the in-situ and the accreted population is considerable everywhere; (5) in-situ stars also form substructures in response to the satellite(s) accretion. These points are valid even if the search is restricted to kinematically-selected halo stars only. As we are now entering the 'Gaia era', our results warn that an extreme caution must be employed before interpreting overdensities in any of those spaces as evidence of relics of accreted satellites. Reconstructing the accretion history of our Galaxy will require a substantial amount of accurate spectroscopic data, that, complemented by the kinematic information, will possibly allow us to (chemically) identify accreted streams and measure their orbital properties. (abridged)

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arXiv2016

Hiding its age: the case for a younger bulge

The determination of the age of the bulge has led to two contradictory results. On the one side, the color-magnitude diagrams in different bulge fields seem to indicate a uniformly old ($>$10 Gyr) population. On the other side, individual ages derived from dwarfs observed through microlensing events seem to indicate a large spread, from $\sim$ 2 to $\sim$ 13 Gyr. Because the bulge is now recognised as being mainly a boxy peanut-shaped bar, it is suggested that disk stars are one of its main constituents, and therefore also stars with ages significantly younger than 10 Gyr. Other arguments as well point to the fact that the bulge cannot be exclusively old, and in particular cannot be a burst population, as it is usually expected if the bulge was the fossil remnant of a merger phase in the early Galaxy. In the present study, we show that given the range of metallicities observed in the bulge, a uniformly old population would be reflected into a significant spread in color at the turn-off which is not observed. Inversely, we demonstrate that the correlation between age and metallicity expected to hold for the inner disk would conspire to form a color-magnitude diagram with a remarkably small spread in color, thus mimicking the color-magnitude diagram of a uniformly old population. If stars younger than 10 Gyr are part of the bulge, as must be the case if the bulge has been mainly formed through dynamical instabilities in the disk, then a very small spread at the turn-off is expected, as seen in the observations.

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arXiv2016

When the Milky Way turned off the lights: APOGEE provides evidence of star formation quenching in our Galaxy

Quenching, the cessation of star formation, is one of the most significant events in the life cycle of galaxies. We show here the first evidence that the Milky Way experienced a generalised quenching of its star formation at the end of its thick disk formation $\sim$9 Gyr ago. Elemental abundances of stars studied as part of the APOGEE survey reveal indeed that in less than $\sim$2 Gyr the star formation rate in our Galaxy dropped by an order-of-magnitude. Because of the tight correlation between age and alpha abundance, this event reflects in the dearth of stars along the inner disk sequence in the [Fe/H]-[$α$/Fe] plane. Before this phase, which lasted about 1.5 Gyr, the Milky Way was actively forming stars. Afterwards, the star formation resumed at a much lower level to form the thin disk. These events are very well matched by the latest observation of MW-type progenitors at high redshifts. In late type galaxies, quenching is believed to be related to a long and secular exhaustion of gas. In our Galaxy, it occurred on a much shorter time scale, while the chemical continuity before and after the quenching indicates that it was not due to the exhaustion of the gas. While quenching is generally associated with spheroids, our results show that it also occurs in galaxies like the Milky Way, possibly when they are undergoing a morphological transition from thick to thin disks. Given the demographics of late type galaxies in the local universe, in which classical bulges are rare, we suggest further that this may hold true generally in galaxies with mass lower than or approximately $M^*$, where quenching could be directly a consequence of thick disk formation. We emphasize that the quenching phase in the Milky Way could be contemporaneous with, and related to, the formation of the bar. We sketch a scenario on how a strong bar may inhibit star formation.

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arXiv2016

A new look at the kinematics of the bulge from an N-body model

(Abridged) By using an N-body simulation of a bulge that was formed via a bar instability mechanism, we analyse the imprints of the initial (i.e. before bar formation) location of stars on the bulge kinematics, in particular on the heliocentric radial velocity distribution of bulge stars. Four different latitudes were considered: $b=-4^\circ$, $-6^\circ$, $-8^\circ$, and $-10^\circ$, along the bulge minor axis as well as outside it, at $l=\pm5^\circ$ and $l=\pm10^\circ$. The bulge X-shaped structure comprises stars that formed in the disk at different locations. Stars formed in the outer disk, beyond the end of the bar, which are part of the boxy peanut-bulge structure may show peaks in the velocity distributions at positive and negative heliocentric radial velocities with high absolute values that can be larger than 100 $\rm km$ $\rm s^{-1}$, depending on the observed direction. In some cases the structure of the velocity field is more complex and several peaks are observed. Stars formed in the inner disk, the most numerous, contribute predominantly to the X-shaped structure and present different kinematic characteristics. Our results may enable us to interpret the cold high-velocity peak observed in the APOGEE commissioning data, as well as the excess of high-velocity stars in the near and far arms of the X-shaped structure at $l$=$0^\circ$ and $b$=$-6^\circ$. When compared with real data, the kinematic picture becomes more complex due to the possible presence in the observed samples of classical bulge and/or thick disk stars. Overall, our results point to the existence of complex patterns and structures in the bulge velocity fields, which are generated by the bar. This suggests that caution should be used when interpreting the bulge kinematics: the presence of substructures, peaks and clumps in the velocity fields is not necessarily a sign of past accretion events.

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arXiv2015

Quantifying stellar radial migration in an N-body simulation: blurring, churning, and the outer regions of galaxy discs

Radial stellar migration in galactic discs has received much attention in studies of galactic dynamics and chemical evolution, but remains a dynamical phenomenon that needs to be fully quantified. In this work, using a Tree-SPH simulation of an Sb-type disc galaxy, we quantify the effects of blurring (epicyclic excursions) and churning (change of guiding radius). We quantify migration (either blurring or churning) both in terms of flux (the number of migrators passing at a given radius), and by estimating the population of migrators at a given radius at the end of the simulation compared to non-migrators, but also by giving the distance over which the migration is effective at all radii. We confirm that the corotation of the bar is the main source of migrators by churning in a bar-dominated galaxy, its intensity being directly linked to the episode of a strong bar, in the first 1-3 Gyr of the simulation. We show that within the outer Lindblad resonance (OLR), migration is strongly dominated by churning, while blurring gains progressively more importance towards the outer disc and at later times. Most importantly, we show that the OLR limits the exchange of angular momentum, separating the disc in two distinct parts with minimal or null exchange, except in the transition zone, which is delimited by the position of the OLR at the epoch of the formation of the bar, and at the final epoch. We discuss the consequences of these findings for our understanding of the structure of the Milky Way disc. Because the Sun is situated slightly outside the OLR, we suggest that the solar vicinity may have experienced very limited churning from the inner disc.

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arXiv2015

Clues to the formation of the Milky Way's thick disk

We analyse the chemical properties of a set of solar vicinity stars, and show that the small dispersion in abundances of α-elements at all ages provides evidence that the SFH has been uniform throughout the thick disk. In the context of long time scale infall models, we suggest that this result points either to a limited dependence of the gas accretion on the Galactic radius in the inner disk (R<10 kpc), or to a decoupling of the accretion history and star formation history due to other processes governing the ISM in the early disk, suggesting that infall cannot be a determining parameter of the chemical evolution at these epochs. We argue however that these results and other recent observational constraints -- namely the lack of radial metallicity gradient and the non-evolving scale length of the thick disk -- are better explained if the early disk is viewed as a pre-assembled gaseous system, with most of the gas settled before significant star formation took place -- formally the equivalent of a closed-box model. In any case, these results point to a weak, or non-existent inside-out formation history in the thick disk, or in the first 3-5 Gyr of the formation of the Galaxy. We argue however that the growing importance of an external disk whose chemical properties are distinct from those of the inner disk would give the impression of an inside-out growth process when seen through snapshots at different epochs. However, the progressive, continuous process usually invoked may not have actually existed in the Milky Way.

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arXiv2015

On the cosmic evolution of the specific star formation rate

The apparent correlation between the specific star formation rate (sSFR) and total stellar mass (M_star) of galaxies is a fundamental relationship indicating how they formed their stellar populations. To attempt to understand this relation, we hypothesize that the relation and its evolution is regulated by the increase in the stellar and gas mass surface density in galaxies with redshift, which is itself governed by the angular momentum of the accreted gas, the amount of available gas, and by self-regulation of star formation. With our model, we can reproduce the specific SFR-M_star relations at z~1-2 by assuming gas fractions and gas mass surface densities similar to those observed for z=1-2 galaxies. We further argue that it is the increasing angular momentum with cosmic time that causes a decrease in the surface density of accreted gas. The gas mass surface densities in galaxies are controlled by the centrifugal support (i.e., angular momentum), and the sSFR is predicted to increase as, sSFR(z)=(1+z)^3/t_H0, as observed (where t_H0 is the Hubble time and no free parameters are necessary). At z>~2, we argue that star formation is self-regulated by high pressures generated by the intense star formation itself. The star formation intensity must be high enough to either balance the hydrostatic pressure (a rather extreme assumption) or to generate high turbulent pressure in the molecular medium which maintains galaxies near the line of instability (i.e. Toomre Q~1). The most important factor is the increase in stellar and gas mass surface density with redshift, which allows distant galaxies to maintain high levels of sSFR. Without a strong feedback from massive stars, such galaxies would likely reach very high sSFR levels, have high star formation efficiencies, and because strong feedback drives outflows, ultimately have an excess of stellar baryons (abridged).

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arXiv2014

Reconstructing the star formation history of the Milky Way disc(s) from chemical abundances

We develop a chemical evolution model in order to study the star formation history of the Milky Way. Our model assumes that the Milky Way is formed from a closed box-like system in the inner regions, while the outer parts of the disc experience some accretion. Unlike the usual procedure, we do not fix the star formation prescription (e.g. Kennicutt law) in order to reproduce the chemical abundance trends. Instead, we fit the abundance trends with age in order to recover the star formation history of the Galaxy. Our method enables one to recover with unprecedented accuracy the star formation history of the Milky Way in the first Gyrs, in both the inner (R<7-8kpc) and outer (R>9-10kpc) discs as sampled in the solar vicinity. We show that, in the inner disc, half of the stellar mass formed during the thick disc phase, in the first 4-5 Gyr. This phase was followed by a significant dip in the star formation activity (at 8-9 Gyr) and a period of roughly constant lower level star formation for the remaining 8 Gyr. The thick disc phase has produced as many metals in 4 Gyr as the thin disc in the remaining 8 Gyr. Our results suggest that a closed box model is able to fit all the available constraints in the inner disc. A closed box system is qualitatively equivalent to a regime where the accretion rate, at high redshift, maintains a high gas fraction in the inner disc. In such conditions, the SFR is mainly governed by the high turbulence of the ISM. By z~1 it is possible that most of the accretion takes place in the outer disc, while the star formation activity in the inner disc is mostly sustained by the gas not consumed during the thick disc phase, and the continuous ejecta from earlier generations of stars. The outer disc follows a star formation history very similar to that of the inner disc, although initiated at z~2, about 2 Gyr before the onset of the thin disc formation in the inner disc.

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arXiv2014

Why the Milky Way's bulge is not only a bar formed from a cold thin disk

By analyzing a N-body simulation of a bulge formed simply via a bar instability mechanism operating on a kinematically cold stellar disk, and by comparing the results of this analysis with the structural and kinematic properties of the main stellar populations of the Milky Way bulge, we conclude that the bulge of our Galaxy is not a pure stellar bar formed from a pre-existing thin stellar disk, as some studies have recently suggested. On the basis of several arguments emphasized in this paper, we propose that the bulge population which, in the Milky Way, is observed not to be part of the peanut structure corresponds to the old galactic thick disk, thus implying that the Milky Way is a pure thin+thick disk galaxy, with only a possible limited contribution of a classical bulge.

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arXiv2014

Mapping a stellar disk into a boxy bulge: The outside-in part of the Milky Way bulge formation

By means of idealized, dissipationless N-body simulations which follow the formation and subsequent buckling of a stellar bar, we study the characteristics of boxy/peanut-shaped bulges and compare them with the properties of the stellar populations in the Milky Way bulge. The main results of our modeling, valid for the general family of boxy/peanut shaped bulges, are the following: (i) because of the spatial redistribution in the disk initiated at the epoch of bar formation, stars from the innermost regions to the outer Lindblad resonance of the stellar bar are mapped into a boxy bulge; (ii) the contribution of stars to the local bulge density depends on their birth radius: stars born in the innermost disk tend to dominate the innermost regions of the boxy bulge, while stars originating closer to the OLR are preferentially found in the outer regions of the boxy/peanut structure; (iii) stellar birth radii are imprinted in the bulge kinematics, the larger the birth radii of stars ending up in the bulge, the greater their rotational support and the higher their line-of- sight velocity dispersions (but note that this last trend depends on the bar viewing angle); (iv) the higher the classical bulge-over-disk ratio, the larger its fractional contribution of stars at large vertical distance from the galaxy mid-plane. (ABRIDGED) On the basis of their chemical and kinematic characteristics, the results of our modeling suggests that the populations A, B and C, as defined by the ARGOS survey, can be associated, respectively, with the inner thin disk, to the young thick and to the old thick disk, following the nomenclature recently suggested for stars in the solar neighborhood by Haywood et al. (2013).

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arXiv2014

The Besancon Galaxy model renewed I. Constraints on the local star formation history from Tycho data

The understanding of Galaxy evolution can be facilitated by the use of population synthesis models, which allows us to test hypotheses on the star formation history, star evolution, and chemical and dynamical evolution of the Galaxy. The new version of the Besancon Galaxy model (hereafter BGM) aims to provide a more flexible and powerful tool to investigate the initial mass function (IMF) and star formation rate (SFR) of the Galactic disc. We present a new strategy for the generation of thin disc stars, which assumes the IMF, SFR and evolutionary tracks as free parameters. We have updated most of the ingredients for the star count production and, for the first time, binary stars are generated in a consistent way. The local dynamical self-consistency is maintained in this new scheme. We then compare simulations from the new model with Tycho-2 data and the local luminosity function, as a first test to verify and constrain the new ingredients. The effects of changing thirteen different ingredients of the model are systematically studied. For the first time, a full sky comparison is performed between BGM and data. This strategy allows us to constrain the IMF slope at high masses, which is found to be close to 3.0 and excludes a shallower slope such as Salpeter's one. The SFR is found decreasing whatever IMF is assumed. The model is compatible with a local dark matter density of 0.011 Mo/pc^3 implying that there is no compelling evidence for the significant amount of dark matter in the disc. While the model is fitted to Tycho-2 data, which is a magnitude limited sample with V<11, we check that it is still consistent with fainter stars. The new model constitutes a new basis for further comparisons with large scale surveys and is being prepared to become a powerful tool for the analysis of the Gaia mission data.

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arXiv2014

Metallicity and kinematics of the bar in-situ

Constraints on the Galactic bulge/bar structure and formation history from stellar kinematics and metallicities mainly come from relatively high-latitude fields (|b|>4) where a complex mix of stellar population is seen. We aim here to constrain the formation history of the Galactic bar by studying the radial velocity and metallicity distributions of stars in-situ (|b|<1). We observed red clump stars in four fields along the bar's major axis (l=10,6,-6 and b=0 plus a field at l=0,b=1) with low-resolution spectroscopy from VLT/FLAMES, observing around the CaII triplet. We developed robust methods for extracting radial velocity and metallicity estimates from these low signal-to-noise spectra. We derived distance probability distributions using Bayesian methods rigorously handling the extinction law. We present radial velocities and metallicity distributions, as well as radial velocity trends with distance. We observe an increase in the radial velocity dispersion near the Galactic plane. We detect the streaming motion of the stars induced by the bar in fields at l=+/-6, the highest velocity components of this bar stream being metal-rich ([Fe/H]~0.2 dex). Our data is consistent with a bar inclined at 26+/-3 from the Sun-Galactic centre line. We observe a significant fraction of metal-poor stars, in particular in the field at l=0,b=1. We confirm the flattening of the metallicity gradient along the minor axis when getting closer to the plane, with a hint that it could actually be inverted. Our stellar kinematics corresponds to the expected behaviour of a bar issued from the secular evolution of the Galactic disc. The mix of several populations, seen further away from the plane, is also seen in the bar in-situ since our metallicity distributions highlight a different spatial distribution between metal-poor and metal-rich stars, the more metal-poor stars being more centrally concentrated.

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