Spectroscopy of red giants in the large magellanic cloud bar:Abundances, kinematics, and the age-metallicity relation

We report metallicities and radial velocities derived from spectra at the near-infrared calcium triplet for 373 red giants in a 200 arcmin(2) area at the optical center of the LMC bar. These are the first spectroscopic abundance measurements of intermediate-age and old field stars in the high surface brightness heart of the LMC. The metallicity distribution is sharply peaked at the median value [Fe/H] = -0.40, with a small tail of stars extending down to [Fe/H]