Armchair cartography - a map of the galactic halo based on observations of local, metal-poor stars

A method is developed by which one can reconstruct a global model of that part of the galactic stellar halo which consists of stars on orbits taking them near the Sun. The model is constructed from observed positions and three-dimensional velocities of local, metal-poor halo stars in terms of a discrete sum of orbits. The method is applied to a sample of 118 local stars, selected without kinematic bias, with [Fe/H] ≤ - 1.5 and <[Fe/H]> ≅ - 2.0. A Stackel model of the galactic potential is developed in the paper, much facilitating the implementation of the above method. (author)