A&A 513, A35 (2010) Astronomy DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/200913444 & c ESO 2010 Astrophysics Chemical similarities between Galactic bulge and local thick disk red giants: O, Na, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, and Ti A. Alves-Brito1,2, J. Meléndez3, M. Asplund4, I. Ramírez4, and D. Yong5 1 Universidade de São Paulo, IAG, Rua do Matão 1226, Cidade Universitária, São Paulo 05508-900, Brazil e-mail:
[email protected] 2 Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122, Australia 3 Centro de Astrofísica da Universidade do Porto, Rua das Estrelas, 4150-762 Porto, Portugal e-mail:
[email protected] 4 Max Planck Institut für Astrophysik, Postfach 1317, 85741 Garching, Germany 5 Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The Australian National University, Cotter Road, Weston, ACT 2611, Australia Received 9 October 2009 / Accepted 13 January 2010 ABSTRACT Context. The formation and evolution of the Galactic bulge and its relationship with the other Galactic populations is still poorly understood. Aims. To establish the chemical differences and similarities between the bulge and other stellar populations, we performed an elemen- tal abundance analysis of α- (O, Mg, Si, Ca, and Ti) and Z-odd (Na and Al) elements of red giant stars in the bulge as well as of local thin disk, thick disk and halo giants. Methods. We use high-resolution optical spectra of 25 bulge giants in Baade’s window and 55 comparison giants (4 halo, 29 thin disk and 22 thick disk giants) in the solar neighborhood. All stars have similar stellar parameters but cover a broad range in metallicity (−1.5 < [Fe/H] < +0.5).