Star Formation Histories from colour-magnitude diagram fitting to unveil the secrets of our Galaxy with Gaia
Gaia has provided distances and photometry, and thus colour-magnitude diagrams in the absolute plane, for stars in an unprecedentedly vast volume of the Milky Way, encompassing its different components. This has allowed us, for the first time, to derive detailed star formation histories from direct modelling of these colour-magnitude diagrams, using the same techniques that have been proven successful for external galaxies in the Local Group. I will discuss the first results from the analysis of the 2 Kpc bubble around the Sun. The application of such techniques in this volume has allowed us to precisely date the first events involved in the formation of the inner Milky Way halo and to unveil epochs of enhanced star formation, probably associated to the various pericentric passages of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy around our Galaxy. Additionally, I will outline ongoing and future plans to fully exploit current and future Gaia data releases including the vertical distribution of ages in the Milky Way disc and the study of star formation histories of halo substructures in phase space.
