We are pleased to announce that we will be hosting a Kavli Science Focus Meeting, “Ordo ab Chao: Star formation and chemistry from z>10 to local relics” on Tuesday 3rd February 2026, from 9:00am to 5:15pm in the Martin Ryle Seminar Room at KICC.

Invited speakers: Prof. Stefania Salvadori (Florence), Dr. Vanessa Hill (CNRS), Dr. Mirko Curti (ESO)

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Programme, Zoom link and talk abstracts

Talk abstracts

09:40 — Mirko Curti (Invited)

Studying the metallicity properties of high-redshift galaxies: seeking order from chaos

The James Webb Space Telescope has fulfilled its long-awaited promises, opening an entirely new window to constrain star-formation, metal and dust enrichment, and feedback processes in some of the earliest galaxies ever formed. A key driver of this progress is the JWST capability to deliver auroral-line detections out to high redshift, enabling increasingly robust, physically motivated electron-temperature (Te)-based metallicity measurements beyond the local Universe.
Yet the emerging picture remains complex. Several studies point to rapid chemical enrichment and an increased scatter in metallicity scaling relations--potentially reflecting more stochastic star-formation and feedback--while compelling candidates for (nearly) pristine, extremely metal-poor systems have also been reported
In parallel, growing evidence for non-solar abundance patterns (e.g. elevated N/O at low O/H) suggests variations in star-formation efficiency and/or short-timescale enrichment channels, possibly linked to very massive stars.
After a brief overview of the latest results in the field, I will present some recent developments in the study of detailed chemical abundances in high-z galaxies that leverage deep NIRSpec spectroscopy in combination with novel, multi-cloud photoionisation modeling. I will also discuss how the evolution in the metallicity-dependence of star-formation and the prevalence of non-solar abundance patterns across the cosmic history can influence our understanding of stellar evolution and the predicted rates of phenomena linked to metal-poor progenitors.  
Finally, I will discuss future prospects in light of forthcoming large spectroscopic surveys (e.g. MOONS, 4MOST) and next-generation ground-based (ELT) and space-based (e.g. PRIMA) facilities. 

10:10 — Sarah Kane

Tracing the contribution of globular clusters to the Milky Way with high-[N/O] stars

Today, globular clusters (GCs) constitute a relatively small fraction of the Milky Way’s stellar mass, but their role in star formation is thought to have once been much more significant in the early Galaxy. We can trace the contribution of dissolved and disrupted GCs via their most unusual stars: those with such unusually high [N/O] ratios that they can reliably be identified as having formed in a cluster even long after escaping. In this talk, I will summarize how we can identify these anomalous high-[N/O] stars from low resolution Gaia BP/RP spectra and what the properties of these GC-origin stars tell us about early clustered star formation in the Milky Way.

10:30 — Xihan Ji

Chemical "anomalies" discovered by JWST in the early Universe

Recent years of JWST observations have revealed that chemical abundance patterns in many bright galaxies at high redshift appear "abnormal" compared to local galaxies. The chemical anomalies could be an indication of star formation dominated by dense star clusters at early time. I will talk about the JWST discoveries and their potential connection to globular clusters observed in our Milky Way.

11:30 — Vanessa Hill (Invited)

Pristine stars in the Milky-Way

Extremely metal-poor stars (EMP, [Fe/H] < −3 dex) are witnesses of early stages of galaxy formation, and bear traces of the nucleosynthesis of the first generations of stars (PopIII stars) that polluted the ISM from which they formed, early in the Universe.
I will discuss the ongoing efforts of the Pristine survey to identify EMP stars in the Milky-Way, and what we have learnt from the last decades from the chemical inventory of these stars, both in terms of understanding very early chemical evolution, an in terms of characterizing the early accretion (and perhaps in-situ) history onto the Milky-Way, in particular using the results of a recent spectroscopic follow-up campain of bright EMP stars from the Pristine collaboration.

12:00 — Will McClymont

The origin of peculiar chemical abundances in the early Universe

I will discuss chemical abundance patterns in the early Universe, and in particular the emergence of nitrogen-rich galaxies, using the THESAN-ZOOM simulations. I will also discuss the mass-metallicity relation and fundamental metallicity relation in high-redshift galaxies from a theoretical point-of-view.

12:20 — Jan Scholtz

Build of metals and dust in the early Universe using the NIRSpec/IFS and MSA

JWST has allowed to study the chemical enrichment of galaxies up to z=14. In this talk, I will describe the recent results from JADES and GANIFS of galaxies from z= 6-11 with spanning 6 orders of magnitude in stellar mass, allowing us to probe the metal enrichment in first instances of star formation all the way to nitrogen enrichment around massive starbursting galaxies.

12:40 — Anke Ardern-Arentsen

Connecting local carbon-rich metal-poor stars to early star and galaxy formation

In the Local Group, we find that a significant fraction of very metal-poor ([Fe/H] < -2) stars are strongly enhanced in carbon (also in N & O, but C is easiest to see). They are thought to be connected to the First Stars (CEMP-no type) and binary interactions with an AGB companion (CEMP-s) type, separable based on their detailed chemical abundances. Both types are interesting probes of the conditions of early star and galaxy formation, and I will present a brief overview of recent work in this area.

14:00 — Stefania Salvadori (Invited)

Dissecting ancient metal-poor objects in the nearby and distant Universe

The combination of existing and upcoming spectroscopic surveys of nearby ancient metal-poor stars, together with JWST observations of distant metal-poor galaxies, is providing a unique opportunity to make a major leap forward in our understanding of the early phases of metal enrichment and the nature of the first cosmic sources.

I will show that, by interpreting the observed properties of Local Group stars with state-of-the-art models of their cosmological assembly, we can uncover the nature of the pristine (Pop III) supernovae that polluted their birth environments and gain insights into early chemical evolution processes.

I will then use these models to study the evolution of Pop III galaxies and to interpret the properties of LAP1-B, one of the most metal-poor, low-mass, high-redshift galaxies uncovered by JWST, demonstrating that it is consistent with being the first self-polluted Pop III galaxy directly observed.

Finally, I will discuss the emerging picture obtained by simultaneously interpreting Near- and Far-field cosmology observations of the most metal-poor objects.

14:30 — Stephen Thorpe

pop-cosmos: the mass-metallicity relation from generative modelling of a deep multi-wavelength catalogue

Deep multi-wavelength photometric surveys such as the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) provide exquisite data with which to constrain the redshift-evolving galaxy population. We have used 26-band UV-MIR photometry from the COSMOS2020 catalogue to constrain a stellar population synthesis- (SPS-)based generative model, pop-cosmos, for the galaxy population out to z~6. The learned population model is represented by a score-based diffusion model, which defines a distribution over 16 SPS parameters (including stellar mass, a binned star-formation history, stellar and gas-phase metallicity, and gas ionization). By viewing different projections and marginalizations of the learned model, we are able to make inferences about galaxy evolution trends and scaling relations, estimated at the population-level from photometry alone. I will give a brief overview of the pop-cosmos generative modelling pipeline, and will discuss our inferences about the redshift evolution of the stellar and gas-phase metallicity vs. mass relations. I will particularly highlight how this approach to inferring galaxy evolution trends can circumvent challenges associated with selection effects, and with properties that are only weakly estimated at the individual level.

14:50 — Robert Pascalau (remote)

Dissecting The Alchemist: NIRSpec/IFU Reveals Turbulent Gas Inflows in a Complex Merger System at z=10.17

I will present the first JWST/NIRSpec IFU spatially resolved study of the ISM in the triply lensed z=10.17 system MACS0647-JD. Direct-Te metallicity and ionised gas kinematics maps reveal turbulent, metal-poor gas between two metal-rich components, with tentative AGN signatures suggesting shocked gas accretion. A significant offset between the gas emission and stellar continuum centroids indicates that this system is caught in an early merger stage; this is further backed up by SED modelling of the two component which both show substantial merger-driven star formation enhancement at a lookback time of less than 20 Myr.

15:10 — Maria Koller

Metallicity Gradients in the Reionization Era: Insights from JWST/NIRSpec IFU

I present the highest-redshift measurements to date of gas-phase metallicity gradients, based on JWST/NIRSpec IFU observations of galaxies at z = 7.2–9.5. We find a wide diversity of gradients, ranging from negative to flat or positive, indicating highly varied chemical structures in early galaxies. These results provide new constraints on metal enrichment and mixing in the first billion years.

16:00 — Yuki Isobe

Hunting for elements with JWST

This talk will address that 1) the JADES broad-line AGN stack exhibits high [N/O]>0.4 and high electron density (~1e4 cm-3) comparable to those of high-z N/O-enhanced galaxies, which links N-rich, dense star formation analogous to proto-globular clusters and black hole seeding; 2) the stacked spectrum of the general population of ~600 SFGs at z=4-7 exhibits alpha enhancements and a low [Si/O]=-0.63, suggesting CCSN-dominated gas composition and rapid dust formation; and 3) a new metallicity calibration at z=1-10 based on the stacks of relatively unbiased populations to provide the low-metallicity end of the (fundamental) mass-metallicity relation and explore the earliest metal enrichment.

This meeting will bring together researchers across Cambridge (and beyond) who work or are interested in the production and circulation of elements across cosmic times. We aim to start new collaborations, to connect theory and observations, and to link research on local and distant systems. Everyone is encouraged to discuss future (~5-10 year) observations or simulations that are necessary to advance the field.

• Chemical abundances in the Milky Way, its subsystems, and nearby galaxies
• Chemical abundances at high redshift
• Feedback and metal circulation
• Measuring metallicity: beyond single-zone, integrated measurements
• High N/O systems across cosmic time
• Evidence for pristine enrichment
• The Future of observations and models

We look forward to seeing many of you there!
Best wishes,

Francesco, Stephanie, Xihan, Avishai, Sandro, Roberto, Jan, Anke, Yuki, Maria, Vasily, Robert