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The star formation history of a galaxy is modulated by a plethora of internalprocesses and environmental conditions. The details of how these evolve andcouple together is not fully understood yet. In this work, we study the effectsthat galaxy mergers and morphological transformations have on setting differentmodes of star formation at galactic scales and across cosmic time. We monitorthe global properties of VINTERGATAN, a 20 pc resolution cosmological zoom-insimulation of a Milky Way-type galaxy. Between redshifts 1 and 5, we find thatmajor mergers trigger multiple starburst episodes, corresponding to a tenfolddrop of the gas depletion time down to 100 Myr. Bursty star formation isenabled by the emergence of a galactic disc, when the rotational velocity ofgas starts to dominate over its velocity dispersion. Coherent motions of gasthen outweigh disordered ones, such that the galaxy responds to merger-inducedforcings by redistributing large amounts of gas towards high densities. As aresult, the overall star formation rate is enhanced with an associated decreasein the depletion time. Before redshift 5, mergers are expected to be even morefrequent. However, a more turbulent interstellar medium, is incapable ofreacting in such a collective manner so as to spark rapid star formation. Thus,a constant long depletion time of 1 Gyr is kept, along with a low, butgradually increasing star formation rate. After the last major merger atredshift 1, VINTERGATAN spends the next 8 Gyr evolving secularly. It has asettled and adiabatically growing disc, and a constant star formation rate withgas depletion times of 1-2 Gyr. Our results are compatible with the observedrapid transition between different modes of star formation when galaxies leavethe main sequence.

VINTERGATAN IV: Cosmic phases of star formation in Milky Way-like galaxies