Kavli Affiliate: Huawei Zhang
| Summary:
The earliest assembly of the Milky Way (MW) remains poorly understood, yet the spatial, chemical, and kinematic properties of its most metal-poor stars provide a unique fossil record of its proto-Galaxy phase. Understanding how this ancient component formed is essential for linking near-field Galactic archaeology to high-redshift galaxy evolution. We construct the currently largest 3-D map of inner-Galaxy metal-poor giants by combining several narrow/medium-band photometric surveys, reaching metallicities down to [Fe/H]$sim-$3.5. Comparing observational data with Auriga 18 (Au18) from the Auriga cosmological simulations, we find that the proto-Galaxy population ([Fe/H]$lesssim-$1.4) is highly centrally concentrated within the Galactocentric distance $r_rm gclesssim$15 kpc, and forms a dispersion-supported structure with negligible rotation. The spatial and chemo-dynamical properties of observed proto-Galaxy population closely match those of the metal-poor stars in Au18. Considering Au18 as an analog of the MW, we propose a new scenario in which the formation of the proto-Galaxy is linked, for the first time, to episodes of high-z (z$gtrsim$3) gas compaction, blue-nugget phases, and quenching processes. This framework provides a unified physical picture for the first $sim$1-2 Gyr of the MW’s evolution, bridging local fossil records with future studies of early star-forming galaxies.
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