Inner Galaxy Abundance Patterns with APOGEE

Galactic bulges contain dense fossil records of star formation and galaxy assembly encoded in the chemodynamical patterns of the stars. The Milky Way's bar/bulge is the only one in which we can resolve the chemistry/kinematics of individual stars, but despite sophisticated models that can reproduce the bulk stellar patterns, we have not fully mapped the evolution of our bar/bulge's numerous populations. Recent surveys, particularly in the infrared, are providing opportunities to characterize ever-finer details of the inner Milky Way's velocity and chemical distributions, which are critical discriminants among models with different star formation and evolutionary histories. Using APOGEE data, we will present an analysis of chemodynamical patterns observed in thousands of inner Galaxy stars, discuss implications for tracing the co-evolution of stellar morphological, dynamical, and chemical properties in external galaxies, and highlight future prospects for improvements in the 2020s.