---
OA_type: closed access
_id: '23096'
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.
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).
article_processing_charge: No
article_type: original
author:
- first_name: Zihao
full_name: Li, Zihao
last_name: Li
- first_name: Koki
full_name: Kakiichi, Koki
last_name: Kakiichi
- first_name: Lise
full_name: Christensen, Lise
last_name: Christensen
- first_name: Zheng
full_name: Cai, Zheng
last_name: Cai
- first_name: Valentina
full_name: D’Odorico, Valentina
last_name: D’Odorico
- first_name: Jorryt J
full_name: Matthee, Jorryt J
id: 7439a258-f3c0-11ec-9501-9df22fe06720
last_name: Matthee
orcid: 0000-0003-2871-127X
- first_name: Daichi
full_name: Kashino, Daichi
last_name: Kashino
- first_name: Rongmon
full_name: Bordoloi, Rongmon
last_name: Bordoloi
- first_name: Ruari
full_name: Mackenzie, Ruari
last_name: Mackenzie
- first_name: Trystyn A.M.
full_name: Berg, Trystyn A.M.
last_name: Berg
- first_name: Irene
full_name: Vanni, Irene
last_name: Vanni
- first_name: Stefania
full_name: Salvadori, Stefania
last_name: Salvadori
- first_name: Alessandra
full_name: Venditti, Alessandra
last_name: Venditti
- first_name: Shiwu
full_name: Zhang, Shiwu
last_name: Zhang
- first_name: Sarah E.I.
full_name: Bosman, Sarah E.I.
last_name: Bosman
- first_name: Eduardo
full_name: Bañados, Eduardo
last_name: Bañados
- first_name: Frederick B.
full_name: Davies, Frederick B.
last_name: Davies
- first_name: Xiaohui
full_name: Fan, Xiaohui
last_name: Fan
- first_name: Hyunsung D.
full_name: Jun, Hyunsung D.
last_name: Jun
- first_name: Xiangyu
full_name: Jin, Xiangyu
last_name: Jin
- first_name: Mingyu
full_name: Li, Mingyu
last_name: Li
- first_name: Sofía
full_name: Rojas-Ruiz, Sofía
last_name: Rojas-Ruiz
- first_name: Feige
full_name: Wang, Feige
last_name: Wang
- first_name: Jinyi
full_name: Yang, Jinyi
last_name: Yang
- first_name: Siwei
full_name: Zou, Siwei
last_name: Zou
- first_name: Huanian
full_name: Zhang, Huanian
last_name: Zhang
- first_name: Yongda
full_name: Zhu, Yongda
last_name: Zhu
citation:
ama: Li Z, Kakiichi K, Christensen L, et al. First-star imprints in a metal-poor
galaxy overdensity near the end of reionization. Nature Astronomy. 2026.
doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02993-5
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. Nature Astronomy. Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-026-02993-5
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.” Nature Astronomy. Springer
Nature, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-026-02993-5.
ieee: Z. Li et al., “First-star imprints in a metal-poor galaxy overdensity
near the end of reionization,” Nature Astronomy. Springer Nature, 2026.
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.
mla: Li, Zihao, et al. “First-Star Imprints in a Metal-Poor Galaxy Overdensity near
the End of Reionization.” Nature Astronomy, Springer Nature, 2026, doi:10.1038/s41550-026-02993-5.
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).
das_tickbox: '1'
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.
date_created: 2026-10-11T22:02:07Z
date_published: 2026-09-29T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2026-10-14T06:42:17Z
day: '29'
department:
- _id: JoMa
doi: 10.1038/s41550-026-02993-5
fulldoi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-026-02993-5
language:
- iso: eng
month: '09'
oa_version: None
publication: Nature Astronomy
publication_identifier:
eissn:
- 2397-3366
publication_status: epub_ahead
publisher: Springer Nature
quality_controlled: '1'
researchdata_availability: yes
scopus_import: '1'
status: public
supplementarymaterial: yes
title: First-star imprints in a metal-poor galaxy overdensity near the end of reionization
type: journal_article
user_id: 2DF688A6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
year: '2026'
...