Abstract

We use the recently compiled Stripe 82 catalogue to study the kinematics of solar neighbourhood stars. We develop a method for calculating the halo contamination in a sample of stars using the distribution of rotational velocities. We then assume literature values for the properties of the halo and study the kinematics of the disc in isolation, as a function of position and metallicity. For stars with [Fe/H] > −0.5 we measure sigma_z / sigma_R = 0.63 \pm 0.03, in good agreement with the value predicted by models of heating by spiral arms and molecular clouds. We present new measurements of the tilt of the velocity ellipsoid for three different ranges in metallicity. We study the asymmetric drift and attempt to model it using a relation derived from the Jeans’ equations and parameters calculated from our data.