An Intermittent Star Formation History in a 'Normal' Disk Galaxy: The Milky Way

Abstract

The star formation rate history of the Milky Way is derived using the chromospheric age distribution for 552 stars in the solar neighborhood. The stars sample birthsites distributed over a very large range of distances because of orbital diffusion, and so give an estimate of the global star formation rate history. The derivation incorporates the metallicity dependence of chromospheric emission at a given age, and corrections to account for incompleteness, scale height-age correlations, and stellar evolutionary effects. The results show that the Milky Way has undergone fluctuations in the global star formation rate with amplitudes greater than a factor of 2-3 on timescales less than 0.2-1 Gyr. The actual history is likely to be more bursty than found here because of the smearing effect of age uncertainties. There is some evidence for a slow secular increase in the star formation rate, perhaps a record of the accumulation history of our galaxy. A smooth nearly-constant star formation rate history is strongly ruled out, confirming the result first discovered by Barry (1988) using a smaller sample and a different age calibration. This result suggests that galaxies can fluctuate coherently on large scales.

Minor revision reflecting comments by referee. 16 pages (LaTeX), 2 Postscript figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal (Letters)

References in corpus (1)

• The Star Formation History of the Local Group dwarf galaxy Leo I

Cited by in corpus (50)

• Three Dimensional Structure of the Milky Way Disk
• The Geneva-Copenhagen Survey of the Solar neighbourhood II. New uvby calibrations and rediscussion of stellar ages, the G dwarf problem, age-metallicity diagram, and heating mechanisms of the disk
• Chemical enrichment of the intra-cluster and intergalactic medium in a hierarchical galaxy formation model
• Star Formation from Galaxies to Globules
• Galaxy Disks
• VLT/UVES Abundances in Four Nearby Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies: II. Implications for Understanding Galaxy Evolution
• The Spiral Structure of the Milky Way, Cosmic Rays, and Ice Age Epochs on Earth
• A Dynamical Model for the Extra-planar Gas in Spiral Galaxies
• Direct determination of the spiral pattern rotation speed of the Galaxy
• E/S0 Galaxies on the Blue Color-Stellar Mass Sequence at z=0: Fading Mergers or Future Spirals?
• A simple model for the evolution of disc galaxies: The Milky Way
• Ultraluminous Starbursts from SMBH-induced outflows
• The Formation of a Disk Galaxy within a Growing Dark Halo
• A Herschel [CII] Galactic plane survey III: [CII] as a tracer of star formation
• Time Dependence of the Ultraviolet Radiation Field in the Local Interstellar Medium
• Small Scale Structure at High Redshift: II. Physical Properties of the CIV Absorbing Clouds
• Finding benchmark brown dwarfs to probe the IMF as a function of time
• Simulating the Formation of the Local Galaxy Population
• The recent star formation history of the Hipparcos solar neighbourhood
• Revisiting two local constraints of the Galactic chemical evolution
• Galactic Chemical Evolution
• A Population of Very-Hot Super-Earths in Multiple-Planet Systems Should be Uncovered by Kepler
• A comprehensive progenitor model for SNe Ia
• On the recent star formation history of the Milky Way disk
• The Effect of Star Formation History on the Inferred Initial Stellar Mass Function
• Thermal instabilities in cooling galactic coronae: fuelling star formation in galactic discs
• Expected coalescence rates of NS-NS binaries for laser beam interferometers
• Extracting Star Formation Histories from Medium-resolution Galaxy Spectra
• An inverse method to interpret colour-magnitude diagrams
• A comprehensive comparison of the Sun to other stars: searching for self-selection effects
• Insight Into the Formation of the Milky Way Through Cold Halo Substructure. II. The Elemental Abundances of ECHOS
• Discovery of a Solitaire Dwarf Galaxy in the APPLES Survey
• On the correlation between the recent star formation rate in the Solar Neighbourhood and the glaciation period record on Earth
• The Chemical Evolution of the Milky Way
• Global star formation history: A Local Group perspective
• A search for southern ultracool dwarfs in young moving groups
• UGC8802: A Massive Disk Galaxy in Formation
• When is star formation episodic? A delay differential equation negative feedback model
• The star formation history of intermediate redshift late-type galaxies
• Astrobiological Complexity with Probabilistic Cellular Automata
• The G-dwarf problem in the Galaxy
• Application of the Limit Cycle Model to Star Formation Histories in Spiral Galaxies: Variation among Morphological Types
• Testing Intermittency of the Galactic Star Formation History along with the Infall Model
• Helium contamination from the progenitor stars of planetary nebulae: The He/H radial gradient and the Delta Y/Delta Z enrichment ratio
• Chemical Evolution of the Galaxy Based on the Oscillatory Star Formation History
• Expected Coalescence Rate of Double Neutron Stars for Ground Based Interferometers
• Positive feedback at the disc-halo interface
• Advanced VIRGO: detector optimization for gravitational waves by inspiralling binaries
• Episodic Model For Star Formation History and Chemical Abundances in Giant and Dwarf Galaxies
• Spectroscopic confirmation of hydrogen alpha-selected satellite galaxies