An intermittent star formation history in a "normal" disk Galaxy: The Milky Way

The star formation rate history of the Milky Way is derived using the chrom ospheric age distribution for 552 stars in the solar neighborhood. The star s' sample birth sites are distributed over a very large range of distances because of orbital diffusion and so give an estimate of the global star for mation rate history. The derivation incorporates the metallicity dependence of chromospheric emission at a given age and corrections to account for in completeness, scale height-age correlations, and stellar evolutionary effec ts. We find 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 inc rease in the star formation rate, perhaps a record of the accumulation hist ory of our Galaxy. A smooth, nearly constant star formation rate history is strongly ruled out, confirming the result first discovered by Barry using a smaller sample and a different age calibration. This result suggests that galaxies can fluctuate coherently on large scales.