You should check out Database Systems: The Complete Book.
Those papers have a lot of that information, but it's usually a bit buried.
> What system calls do they make
I think that's actually kind of out of scope for a paper, because already you are assuming an OS and a language. Many papers/articles assume neither.
> what schemes do they use to minimize seeks
Look for information on buffer management/buffer managers
> how is the memory laid out
Almost always in pages that correspond to disk blocks. Also it's dependent on lots of things (transactional model, index types, column vs row orientation, etc..) This is heavily tied into the buffer management stuff too.
Those papers have a lot of that information, but it's usually a bit buried.
> What system calls do they make
I think that's actually kind of out of scope for a paper, because already you are assuming an OS and a language. Many papers/articles assume neither.
> what schemes do they use to minimize seeks
Look for information on buffer management/buffer managers
> how is the memory laid out
Almost always in pages that correspond to disk blocks. Also it's dependent on lots of things (transactional model, index types, column vs row orientation, etc..) This is heavily tied into the buffer management stuff too.