A SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY OF THE THICK DISC OUTSIDE THE SOLAR NEIGHBOURHOOD: A COMPARISON WITH THE BESANÇON MODEL.

A spectroscopic survey of nearly 700 stars probing the Galactic Thick Disc far from the Solar neighbourhood is performed. The MATISSE (MATrix Inversion for Spectral SynthEsis) algorithm is developed and trained in order to automatically obtain atmospheric parameters of stars. The derived effective temperatures, surface gravities and overall metallicities are then combined to stellar evolution isochrones, radial velocities and proper motions to derive the distances, kinematics and orbital parameters of the sample stars. Results are compared with simulations from the Besançon model of the Milky Way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]