All Figures

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[angle=-90,width=16cm,clip]{9394f1.ps}\end{figure}$ Figure 1: Lower panels: the color magnitude diagram of the four observed fields, with the spectroscopic target stars marked as large filled circles. From left to right the fields are: Baade's Window, the $b=-6^\circ$ field, the $b=-12^\circ$ field and the NGC 6553 field. The large box shows the magnitude limits used for target selection, and the color limits of the upper panels. Upper panels: color histogram of the available stars in the selected target box (thin solid), of the actually observed targets (dotted) and of the ratio of observed to available stars (thick solid). The vertical scale of the latter histogram is shown on the right hand side of the upper panels, and two dashed lines have been drawn at 0.2 and 0.4 to help the eye in reading the figure.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.9cm,clip]{9394f2.ps}\end{figure}$ Figure 2: Comparison between the iron abundance obtained using either the metalpoor or the metalrich line list, for stars with $\rm [Fe/H]<-0.4$ . Small symbols are stars for which the metal-rich line list was giving very poor results (e.g., it was not possible to converge on excitation equilibrium, or the dispersion of measurements from individual lines was too high) and those stars were thus marked as ``low quality''.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.9cm,clip]{9394f3.ps}\end{figure}$ Figure 3: The error on the mean [Fe/H] of each star, due to the line-to-line dispersion. The minimum and maximum number of FeI lines found in each star is indicated in the figure labels.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.9cm,clip]{9394f4.ps}\end{figure}$ Figure 4: The difference in [Fe/H] between the two independent measurements of the two repeated sets of spectra in the $b=-12^\circ$ field.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.9cm,clip]{9394f5.ps}\end{figure}$ Figure 5: Comparison between the measured iron abundances, temperature and microturbulence velocity in the stars observed both with UVES and GIRAFFE. Open symbols are stars with larger dispersion in the line-by-line iron measurements (mostly metal rich stars). The mean systematic difference (solid line) and the $\pm$ $1 \sigma$ spread around it (dotted lines) are shown.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.5cm,clip]{9394f6.ps}\end{figure}$ Figure 6: Left panels: iron abundance versus radial velocity for globular cluster stars included among our targets (filled triangles). Bulge field stars are also shown as small symbols, in order to emphasize that while NGC 6522 and NGC 6558 can be easily separated from field stars, some ambiguity is present in the selection of stars belonging to NGC 6553, due to its near solar metallicity and low radial velocity. Right panels: position of cluster stars with respect to the FLAMES field of view (large circle). The small circle has a radius of 2 arcmin around the cluster center. One star, shown as an open triangle in the middle panel, has metallicity and radial velocity similar to the other NGC 6558 members, but it is very far away from the cluster center, making it unlikely to be a member. The lower right panel shows once again that unambiguous identification of cluster members in NGC 6553 is very hard.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.9cm,clip]{9394f7.ps}\end{figure}$ Figure 7: The raw IDF (thick histogram) compared with the IDF corrected for color bias, according to method i) (shaded histogram) and method ii) (thin histogram) discussed in Sect. 2.1.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.9cm,clip]{9394f8.ps}\end{figure}$ Figure 8: Comparison between the IDF of Baade's Window as derived from giant and red clump stars, the latter from Lecureur et al. (2008).
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[angle=-90,width=7.6cm,clip]{9394f9.ps}\end{figure}$ Figure 9: The derived IDF is compared with previous measurements, in the corresponding fields. Left: the photometric IDF by Zoccali et al. (2003) obtained in the $b=-6^\circ$ field observed here. Right: the spectroscopic IDF by Fulbright et al. (2006) in Baade's Window is compared with the present results. Also shown as a black solid histogram (arbitrarily normalized) is the IDF of the 27 stars actually observed by Fulbright et al. (2006) at high spectral resolution.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.5cm,clip]{9394f10.ps}\end{figure}$ Figure 10: The upper panels show the observed and model CMD for the Baade's Window field, together with the box where the targets were selected. The bottom panels show the distance and color distribution of bulge stars (open histogram) and of thick (light dashed) and thin disk (heavy dashed). The disk histograms are scaled to the contamination fraction - with respect to the total number of stars - shown in the y-axis on the right end side of the plots.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.4cm,clip]{9394f11.ps}\end{figure}$ Figure 11: Same as Fig. 10 for the field at $b=-6^\circ$ .
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.2cm,clip]{9394f12.ps}\end{figure}$ Figure 12: Same as Fig. 10 for the field at $b=-12^\circ$ .
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.3cm,clip]{9394f13.ps}\end{figure}$ Figure 13: Left: IDF for the NGC 6553 field as a function of color, from the bluest stars at the bottom to the reddest stars at the top. A vertical line marks the mean of the distribution. Upper right: metallicity versus radial velocity for individual stars. Cluster stars have been excluded from all these plots. Empty squares are stars with V-I < 2.3, and [Fe/H] > -0.2, while all the other stars are filled triangles. Middle right: radial velocity distribution for stars with V-I<2.3 and $\rm [Fe/H]>-0.2$ (empty squares above). Mean and sigma of the distribution are shown in the figure label. Bottom right, same as above for all the other field stars (small filled triangles in the upper right plot).
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.9cm,clip]{9394f14.ps}\end{figure}$ Figure 14: The obtained IDFs for the three fields along the bulge minor axis, from the innermost one (Baade's Window, top) to the outermost one ( bottom). The gaussians show the IDF of contaminating thick and thin disk stars, normalized to the expected contamination fraction, according to the Besançon Galaxy model. The thick disk contamination percent in the lower panel has been reduced at 30 $\%$ (as opposed to the 60 $\%$ predicted by the model) in order to match the number of observed stars with [Fe/H] < -0.5. See text for details.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.9cm,clip]{9394f15.ps}\end{figure}$ Figure 15: Metallicity versus radial velocity for individual stars in the three bulge fields along the minor axis. Globular cluster stars shown in Fig. 6 have been removed from this plot.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.9cm,clip]{9394f16.ps}\end{figure}$ Figure 16: The observed bulge IDF in Baade's Window compared with a simple, one-zone model with an assumed iron yield of $y_{\rm Fe}$ = +0.03.
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In the text

$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.9cm,clip]{9394f3.ps}\end{figure}$	Figure 3: The error on the mean [Fe/H] of each star, due to the line-to-line dispersion. The minimum and maximum number of FeI lines found in each star is indicated in the figure labels.
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$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.9cm,clip]{9394f4.ps}\end{figure}$	Figure 4: The difference in [Fe/H] between the two independent measurements of the two repeated sets of spectra in the $b=-12^\circ$ field.
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$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.9cm,clip]{9394f5.ps}\end{figure}$	Figure 5: Comparison between the measured iron abundances, temperature and microturbulence velocity in the stars observed both with UVES and GIRAFFE. Open symbols are stars with larger dispersion in the line-by-line iron measurements (mostly metal rich stars). The mean systematic difference (solid line) and the $\pm$ $1 \sigma$ spread around it (dotted lines) are shown.
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$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.9cm,clip]{9394f7.ps}\end{figure}$	Figure 7: The raw IDF (thick histogram) compared with the IDF corrected for color bias, according to method i) (shaded histogram) and method ii) (thin histogram) discussed in Sect. 2.1.
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$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.9cm,clip]{9394f8.ps}\end{figure}$	Figure 8: Comparison between the IDF of Baade's Window as derived from giant and red clump stars, the latter from Lecureur et al. (2008).
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$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.4cm,clip]{9394f11.ps}\end{figure}$	Figure 11: Same as Fig. 10 for the field at $b=-6^\circ$ .
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$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.2cm,clip]{9394f12.ps}\end{figure}$	Figure 12: Same as Fig. 10 for the field at $b=-12^\circ$ .
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$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.9cm,clip]{9394f15.ps}\end{figure}$	Figure 15: Metallicity versus radial velocity for individual stars in the three bulge fields along the minor axis. Globular cluster stars shown in Fig. 6 have been removed from this plot.
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$\begin{figure} \par\includegraphics[width=7.9cm,clip]{9394f16.ps}\end{figure}$	Figure 16: The observed bulge IDF in Baade's Window compared with a simple, one-zone model with an assumed iron yield of $y_{\rm Fe}$ = +0.03.
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