We investigate the nature of the double color-magnitude sequence observed in the Gaia DR2 HR diagram of stars with high transverse velocities. The stars in the reddest-color sequence are likely dominated by the dynamically-hot tail of the thick disk population. Information from Nissen & Schuster (2010) and from the APOGEE survey suggests that stars in the blue-color sequence have elemental abundance patterns that can be explained by this population having a relatively low starformation efficiency during its formation. In dynamical and orbital spaces, such as the 'Toomre diagram', the two sequences show a significant overlap, but with a tendency for stars on the blue-color sequence to dominate regions with no or retrograde rotation and high total orbital energy. In the plane defined by the maximal vertical excursion of the orbits versus their apocenters, stars of both sequences redistribute into discrete wedges. We conclude that stars which are typically assigned to the halo in the solar vicinity are actually both accreted stars lying along the blue sequence in the HR diagram, and the low rotational velocity tail of the old Galactic disk, possibly dynamically heated by past accretion events. Our results imply that a halo population formed in situ and responsible for the early chemical enrichment prior to the formation of the thick disk is yet to be robustly identified, and that what has been defined as the stars of the in situ stellar halo of the Galaxy may be in fact fossil records of its last significant merger.

We develop a chemical evolution model to study the star formation history of the Milky Way. Our model assumes that the Milky Way has formed from a closed-box-like system in the inner regions, while the outer parts of the disc have experienced some accretion. Unlike the usual procedure, we do not fix the star formation prescription (e.g. Kennicutt law) to reproduce the chemical abundance trends. Instead, we fit the abundance trends with age to recover the star formation history of the Galaxy. Our method enables us to recover the star formation history of the Milky Way in the first Gyrs with unprecedented accuracy in the inner (R < 7−8 kpc) and outer (R > 9−10 kpc) discs, as sampled in the solar vicinity. We show that half the stellar mass formed during the thick-disc phase in the inner galaxy during the first 4−5 Gyr. This phase was followed by a significant dip in star formation activity (at 8−9 Gyr) and a period of roughly constant lower-level star formation for the remaining 8 Gyr. The thick-disc phase has produced as many metals in 4 Gyr as the thin-disc phase in the remaining 8 Gyr. Our results suggest that a closed-box model is able to fit all the available constraints in the inner disc. A closed-box system is qualitatively equivalent to a regime where the accretion rate maintains a high gas fraction in the inner disc at high redshift. In these conditions the SFR is mainly governed by the high turbulence of the interstellar medium. By z ∼ 1 it is possible that most of the accretion takes place in the outer disc, while the star formation activity in the inner disc is mostly sustained by the gas that is not consumed during the thick-disc phase and the continuous ejecta from earlier generations of stars. The outer disc follows a star formation history very similar to that of the inner disc, although initiated at z ∼ 2, about 2 Gyr before the onset of the thin-disc formation in the inner disc.