Physics and Structure of the Galactic disc(s)

The model of Schonrich & Binney (2009) offers new ways to understand the chemokinematic structure of the solar neighbourhood in the light of radial mixing. The combination of chemical information with rich kinematic data reveals a still hardly explored abundance of interconnections and structures from which we can learn about both the physics and history of our Galaxy. Large upcoming datasets can be used to improve estimates of central parameters, to shed light on the Galaxy’s history and to explore the unexpected way of understanding the well-known division of the Galactic disc yielded by the new model.