[{"doi":"10.1038/s41550-026-02993-5","department":[{"_id":"JoMa"}],"publication":"Nature Astronomy","publication_identifier":{"eissn":["2397-3366"]},"publication_status":"epub_ahead","das_tickbox":"1","title":"First-star imprints in a metal-poor galaxy overdensity near the end of reionization","year":"2026","publisher":"Springer Nature","oa_version":"None","citation":{"ista":"Li Z, Kakiichi K, Christensen L, Cai Z, D’Odorico V, Matthee JJ, Kashino D, Bordoloi R, Mackenzie R, Berg TAM, Vanni I, Salvadori S, Venditti A, Zhang S, Bosman SEI, Bañados E, Davies FB, Fan X, Jun HD, Jin X, Li M, Rojas-Ruiz S, Wang F, Yang J, Zou S, Zhang H, Zhu Y. 2026. First-star imprints in a metal-poor galaxy overdensity near the end of reionization. Nature Astronomy.","ieee":"Z. Li <i>et al.</i>, “First-star imprints in a metal-poor galaxy overdensity near the end of reionization,” <i>Nature Astronomy</i>. Springer Nature, 2026.","chicago":"Li, Zihao, Koki Kakiichi, Lise Christensen, Zheng Cai, Valentina D’Odorico, Jorryt J Matthee, Daichi Kashino, et al. “First-Star Imprints in a Metal-Poor Galaxy Overdensity near the End of Reionization.” <i>Nature Astronomy</i>. Springer Nature, 2026. <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-026-02993-5\">https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-026-02993-5</a>.","ama":"Li Z, Kakiichi K, Christensen L, et al. First-star imprints in a metal-poor galaxy overdensity near the end of reionization. <i>Nature Astronomy</i>. 2026. doi:<a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-026-02993-5\">10.1038/s41550-026-02993-5</a>","short":"Z. Li, K. Kakiichi, L. Christensen, Z. Cai, V. D’Odorico, J.J. Matthee, D. Kashino, R. Bordoloi, R. Mackenzie, T.A.M. Berg, I. Vanni, S. Salvadori, A. Venditti, S. Zhang, S.E.I. Bosman, E. Bañados, F.B. Davies, X. Fan, H.D. Jun, X. Jin, M. Li, S. Rojas-Ruiz, F. Wang, J. Yang, S. Zou, H. Zhang, Y. Zhu, Nature Astronomy (2026).","apa":"Li, Z., Kakiichi, K., Christensen, L., Cai, Z., D’Odorico, V., Matthee, J. J., … Zhu, Y. (2026). First-star imprints in a metal-poor galaxy overdensity near the end of reionization. <i>Nature Astronomy</i>. Springer Nature. <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-026-02993-5\">https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-026-02993-5</a>","mla":"Li, Zihao, et al. “First-Star Imprints in a Metal-Poor Galaxy Overdensity near the End of Reionization.” <i>Nature Astronomy</i>, Springer Nature, 2026, doi:<a href=\"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-026-02993-5\">10.1038/s41550-026-02993-5</a>."},"scopus_import":"1","fulldoi":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-026-02993-5","language":[{"iso":"eng"}],"date_updated":"2026-10-14T06:42:17Z","month":"09","quality_controlled":"1","day":"29","date_published":"2026-09-29T00:00:00Z","acknowledgement":"This work is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA/CSA JWST, associated with the programmes GO-1243 and GO-2078, and the Very Large Telescope, associated with ESO programmes X-shooter 0100.A-0625, 0102.A-0154, 1103.A-0817 and 096.A-0095. We acknowledge the University of Copenhagen for giving this project access to the LUMI supercomputer owned by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking and hosted by CSC (Finland) and the LUMI consortium through Denmark. Z.L. thanks Y. Ren for helpful discussions. We thank O. Zier, A. Smith, R. Kannan and E. Garaldi for helpful discussions about the THESAN-ZOOM simulation. Z.L. acknowledges the fellowship from the Cosmic Dawn Center, which is funded by the Danish National Research Foundation under grant no. 140. K.K. acknowledges support from the Villum Foundation (71574). L.C. is supported by DFF/Independent Research Fund Denmark (2032-00071). V.D. acknowledges financial support from the Bando Ricerca Fondamentale INAF 2022 Large Grant XQR-30. A.V. acknowledges funding from the Cosmic Frontier Center and the University of Texas at Austin’s College of Natural Sciences. S. Zou acknowledges support from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (E5295401).","abstract":[{"lang":"eng","text":"The first generation of stars, known as population III (Pop III), formed from primordial gas consisting solely of hydrogen and helium and is believed to have emerged only a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. Detecting the chemical enrichment of metal-poor circumgalactic gas offers a promising way to trace the enrichment signature of Pop III stars. Along the sight line to the quasar SDSS J0100+2802, a metal absorber at z = 5.945, showing over-abundant carbon and silicon compared with solar, has been reported to be consistent with the enrichment pattern of Pop III stars. Here, using data recorded by the James Webb Space Telescope, we report the discovery of an unusually metal-poor galaxy overdensity of 17 members (mean metallicity ~3% of solar) near this metal absorber, which is ~0.4 dex more metal-poor than coeval galaxies in similarly overdense environments. This less chemically evolved system may have provided favourable conditions for preserving the absorption signatures of Pop III enrichment. We infer a minimum dark matter halo mass of log(Mh,min/M⊙) = 10.68+0.93 −1.72, supporting late-time Pop III formation at the outskirts of atomic hydrogen cooling haloes. Our findings open a promising observational pathway to identifying the chemical imprints of the first stars and constrain the conditions for their formation."}],"dataavailabilitystatement":"This work is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA/CSA JWST, associated with the programmes GO-1243 and GO-2078, and the Very Large Telescope associated with ESO programmes X-shooter 0100.A-0625, 0102.A-0154, 1103.A-0817 and 096.A-0095. The JWST data are available via the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes at http://archive.stsci.edu under JWST programmes GO-2078 (ref. 127) and GO-1243 (ref. 128). The metal absorber catalogue of XQR-30 is available via GitHub at https://github.com/XQR-30/Metal-catalogue. The [O III] emitter catalogue from the EIGER survey is available via GitHub at https://eiger-jwst.github.io/data.html. Other data presented in this paper are available upon request to the corresponding author.","OA_type":"closed access","researchdata_availability":"yes","author":[{"first_name":"Zihao","full_name":"Li, Zihao","last_name":"Li"},{"last_name":"Kakiichi","full_name":"Kakiichi, Koki","first_name":"Koki"},{"first_name":"Lise","last_name":"Christensen","full_name":"Christensen, Lise"},{"first_name":"Zheng","last_name":"Cai","full_name":"Cai, Zheng"},{"first_name":"Valentina","last_name":"D’Odorico","full_name":"D’Odorico, Valentina"},{"id":"7439a258-f3c0-11ec-9501-9df22fe06720","first_name":"Jorryt J","last_name":"Matthee","orcid":"0000-0003-2871-127X","full_name":"Matthee, Jorryt J"},{"last_name":"Kashino","full_name":"Kashino, Daichi","first_name":"Daichi"},{"first_name":"Rongmon","full_name":"Bordoloi, Rongmon","last_name":"Bordoloi"},{"last_name":"Mackenzie","full_name":"Mackenzie, Ruari","first_name":"Ruari"},{"first_name":"Trystyn A.M.","last_name":"Berg","full_name":"Berg, Trystyn A.M."},{"full_name":"Vanni, Irene","last_name":"Vanni","first_name":"Irene"},{"full_name":"Salvadori, Stefania","last_name":"Salvadori","first_name":"Stefania"},{"full_name":"Venditti, Alessandra","last_name":"Venditti","first_name":"Alessandra"},{"full_name":"Zhang, Shiwu","last_name":"Zhang","first_name":"Shiwu"},{"full_name":"Bosman, Sarah E.I.","last_name":"Bosman","first_name":"Sarah E.I."},{"first_name":"Eduardo","full_name":"Bañados, Eduardo","last_name":"Bañados"},{"first_name":"Frederick B.","last_name":"Davies","full_name":"Davies, Frederick B."},{"full_name":"Fan, Xiaohui","last_name":"Fan","first_name":"Xiaohui"},{"full_name":"Jun, Hyunsung D.","last_name":"Jun","first_name":"Hyunsung D."},{"full_name":"Jin, Xiangyu","last_name":"Jin","first_name":"Xiangyu"},{"last_name":"Li","full_name":"Li, Mingyu","first_name":"Mingyu"},{"full_name":"Rojas-Ruiz, Sofía","last_name":"Rojas-Ruiz","first_name":"Sofía"},{"full_name":"Wang, Feige","last_name":"Wang","first_name":"Feige"},{"first_name":"Jinyi","last_name":"Yang","full_name":"Yang, Jinyi"},{"first_name":"Siwei","last_name":"Zou","full_name":"Zou, Siwei"},{"full_name":"Zhang, Huanian","last_name":"Zhang","first_name":"Huanian"},{"first_name":"Yongda","full_name":"Zhu, Yongda","last_name":"Zhu"}],"article_type":"original","type":"journal_article","article_processing_charge":"No","supplementarymaterial":"yes","status":"public","_id":"23096","date_created":"2026-10-11T22:02:07Z","user_id":"2DF688A6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87"}]