  APOGEE is a large-scale, NIR, high-resolution (R~20,000) spectroscopic survey
of Galactic stars. It is one of the four experiments in SDSS-III. Because
APOGEE will observe in the H band, it will be the first survey to pierce
through Galactic dust and provide a vast, uniform database of chemical
abundances and radial velocities for stars across all Galactic populations
(bulge, disk, and halo). The survey will be conducted with a dedicated,
300-fiber, cryogenic, spectrograph that is being built at the University of
Virginia, coupled to the ARC 2.5m telescope at Apache Point Observatory. APOGEE
will use a significant fraction of the SDSS-III bright time during a three-year
period to observe, at high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N>100), about 100,000 giant
stars selected directly from 2MASS down to a typical flux limit of H<13. The
main scientific objectives of APOGEE are: (1) measuring unbiased metallicity
distributions and abundance patterns for the different Galactic stellar
populations, (2) studying the processes of star formation, feedback, and
chemical mixing in the Milky Way, (3) surveying the dynamics of the bulge and
disk, placing constraints on the nature and influence of the Galactic bar and
spiral arms, and (4) using extensive chemodynamical data, particularly in the
inner Galaxy, to unravel its formation and evolution.
