Two distinct halo populations in the solar neighborhood. Evidence from
  stellar abundance ratios and kinematics
  Precise abundance ratios are determined for 94 dwarf stars with 5200 < Teff <
6300 K, -1.6 < [Fe/H] < -0.4, and distances D < 335 pc. Most of them have halo
kinematics, but 16 thick-disk stars are included. Equivalent widths of atomic
lines are measured from VLT/UVES and NOT/FIES spectra with resolutions R =
55000 and R = 40000, respectively. An LTE abundance analysis based on MARCS
models is applied to derive precise differential abundance ratios of Na, Mg,
Si, Ca, Ti, Cr, and Ni with respect to Fe.
  The halo stars fall into two populations, clearly separated in [alpha/Fe],
where alpha refers to the average abundance of Mg, Si, Ca, and Ti. Differences
in [Na/Fe] and [Ni/Fe] are also present with a remarkably clear correlation
between these two abundance ratios. The `high-alpha' stars may be ancient disk
or bulge stars `heated' to halo kinematics by merging satellite galaxies or
they could have formed as the first stars during the collapse of a
proto-Galactic gas cloud. The kinematics of the `low-alpha' stars suggest that
they have been accreted from dwarf galaxies, and that some of them may
originate from the omega Cen progenitor galaxy.
