Precision Galactic Archaeology: Revealing the Milky Way's Engines through the Statistical Alignments of Stars

The unprecedented precise astrometry of Gaia eDR3 has propelled the study of the Milky Way to enter a phase akin to where cosmology was two decades ago. Classically, the study of the Milky Way focuses mainly on blockbuster events, such as Galactic streams and dynamical resonances. However, these blockbuster events are most likely just showing us the tip of the iceberg. Much of the subgrid physics of the Milky Way only manifests itself through the subtle alignments of stars. Fortunately, such statistical patterns of the Milky Way are readily perceivable with the massive astrometry surveying of stars that densely cover the Milky Way. In this talk, I will discuss how we can extract subtle phase space and chemical fluctuations in the Milky Way and how these fluctuations present enormous new opportunities to reveal the invisible engines that drive the formation of stars and galaxy evolution.