Overlapping abundance gradients and azimuthal gradients related to the
  spiral structure of the Galaxy
  The connection between some features of the metallicity gradient in the
Galactic disk, best revealed by Open Clusters and Cepheids, and the spiral
structure, is explored. The step-like abrupt decrease in metallicity at 8.5 kpc
(with R_0= 7.5 kpc, or at 9.5 kpc if R_0 = 8.5 kpc is adopted) is well
explained by the corotation ring-shaped gap in the density of gas, which
isolates the internal and external regions of the disk one from the other. This
solves a long standing problem of understanding the different chemical
characteristics of the inner and outer parts of the disk. The time required to
build up the metallicity difference between the two sides of the step is a
measure of the minimal life-time of the present grand-design spiral pattern
structure, of the order of 3 Gyr. The plateaux observed on each side of the
step are interpreted in terms of the large scale radial motion of the stars and
of the gas flow induced by the spiral structure. The star-formation rate
revealed by the density of open clusters is maximum in the Galactic radial
range from 6 to 12 kpc (with an exception of a narrow gap at corotation),
coinciding with the region where the 4-arms mode is allowed to exist. We argue
that most of the old open clusters situated at large galactocentric radii were
born in this inner region where conditions more favorable to star-formation are
found. The ratio of $\alpha$-elements to Fe of the sample of Cepheids does not
vary appreciably with the Galactic radius, which reveals an homogeneous history
of star formation. Different arguments are given showing that usual
approximations of chemical evolution models, which assume fast mixing of
metallicity in the azimuthal direction and ignore the existence of the spiral
arms, are a poor ones.
