First Stars VII in NYC

The “First Stars” conference series has brought together astronomers and astrophysicists working on the high-redshift universe roughly every four years since 2007. The seventh edition, First Stars VII, will be hosted in New York City by the Flatiron Institute 20-23 May 2024.  The meeting will feature invited review talks, contributed talks and posters and will leave ample time for discussion. The scientific program will balance theory, observations, and numerical simulations.

Given the recent and emerging data from JWST and several other facilities, as well as major theoretical advances, First Stars VII will be especially timely, and we expect it to have a large impact on the field of high-redshift astrophysics and cosmology for years to come.  The conference will cover the following topics:

(i) The abundance, properties, and fate of Population III stars, with a connection to near-field probes
(ii) The nature of the first galaxies
(iii) Pathways for massive black hole formation and growth and the first quasars
(iv) Reionization and heating of the early intergalactic medium (IGM)
(v) Chemical enrichment inside and outside galaxies
(vi) Gravitational waves as a window to high redshift
(vii) Connecting the high- and low-redshift universe
(viii) Outlook for First Stars VIII.

We expect observational probes to feature unusually heavily at the meeting, given data from several ground-breaking facilities.

The Scientific Organizing Committee (SOC) will ensure that the conference is scientifically excellent, as well as inclusive and welcoming to all participants.

Scientific Organizing Committee (SOC):
Laura Blecha (University of Florida)
Sarah Bosman (MPIA)
Greg Bryan (Columbia University)
Christina Eilers (MIT)
Pratika Dayal (University of Groningen)
Anastasia Fialkov (Cambridge University)
Steven Finkelstein (UT Austin)
Anna Frebel (MIT)
Zoltan Haiman, chair (Columbia University)
Takashi Hosokawa (Kyoto University)
Kohei Inayoshi (Peking University)
Charlotte Mason (NBIA Copenhagen)
Melissa Ness (Columbia University)
Alberto Sesana (University of Milan)
Rachel Somerville  (Flatiron Institute)
John Wise (Georgia Tech)

Local Organizing Committee (LOC):
Greg Bryan  (Columbia University)
Zoltan Haiman  (Columbia University)
Melissa Ness (Columbia University)
Rachel Somerville (Flatiron Institute)

8:00am-8:45am: Breakfast
8:45am-9:00am: Event Logistics

Session: The nature of the first galaxies
(Chair: Steven Finkelstein)

9:00am-9:30am: Yuichi Harikane – Nature of the first galaxies
9:30am-11:30am: Contributed Talks

• Avishai Dekel – Formation of the first galaxies by feedback-free starbursts
• Elijah Visbal – Semi-analytic Models of the First Stars and Galaxies Calibrated with Hydrodynamical Cosmological Simulations
• Laura Sommovigo – (One of )The sorrows of Ancient Galaxies: modeling dust

10:15am-10:45am: AM Coffee Break

• Lily Whitler – Implications for early star formation and ionized bubble growth from the JADES UV luminosity function at z~9-15
• Alessandra Venditti – A needle in a haystack? Catching Pop III stars in the Epoch of Reionization
• Seiji Fujimoto – Early Galaxy Assembly Probed by IFU Trio of JWST+ALMA+MUSE: From Young Star Clusters to Dynamical Interplay at z=6

11:30am-12:00pm: Lightning Talks

• Claire Williams – Lighting up faint galaxies at high redshift through the stream velocity
• Derek McLeod – A census of z>10 galaxies from a suite of JWST ERO, ERS and Cycle-1 programs
• Piyush Sharda – Population III IMF from radiation-chemo-magnetohydrodynamics simulations
• Thomas Harvey – Massive Mysteries: Investigating stellar mass variation at high redshift using PEARLS, CEERS and JADES
• Mabel Stephenson – Electron Densities in the First Galaxies: Understanding the Conditions of Early Star Formation

12:00pm-1:30pm: Lunch

Session: Chemical enrichment inside and outside galaxies
(Chair: Anastasia Fialkov)

1:30pm-2:00pm: Valentina D’Odorico – High-redshift metal enrichment with quasar absorption lines
2:00pm-2:45pm: Contributed Talks

• Allison Strom – Studying Metal-poor Stellar Populations in High-redshift Galaxies with JWST and Keck
• Ása Skúladóttir – Signatures of a Zero-Metallicity Hypernovae
• Devesh Nandal – Deciphering the chemical footprint of massive and supermassive Pop III stars in the early Universe

2:45pm-3:15pm: PM Coffee Break
3:15pm-3:45pm: E-Posters
3:45pm-4:30pm: Contributed Talks (continued)

• Jianghao Huyan – The evolution of metals in the cosmic dawn
• Kaley Brauer – Simulating Early Chemical Enrichment and Formation of the First Galaxies
• Xihan Ji – The exotic nebular emission in GN-z11: Evidence of peculiar chemical enrichment in the most distant AGN *REMOTE*

4:30pm-5:00pm: Lightning Talks

• Akshara Viswanathan – Galactic archaeology of the old Milky Way using the most metal-poor stars
• Martina Rossi – Ultra Faint Dwarf (UDF) Chronicles: Uncovering  Pop III star descendants
• Thomas Stanton – Enhanced O/Fe ratios in star-forming galaxies at cosmic noon
• Sultan Hassan – PRFM: A plausible candidate to explain the abundance of high-z galaxies observed by JWST
• Jennifer Mead – First Steps of Chemical Evolution in the First Galaxies

5:00pm-6:30pm: Reception
Location: 162 Rooftop (note building change)

8:00am-9:00am: Breakfast

Population III stars and their connection to near-field probes
(Chair: Kohei Inayoshi)

9:00am-9:30am: Anna Frebel – Population III stars: abundance, properties, fate, and connection to near-field probes

9:30am-11:30am: Contributed Talks

• Anastasia Fialkov – Constraining Pop III stars with the hydrogen 21-cm signal
• Dan Coe – Approaching the First Stars with JWST and Gravitational Lensing
• James Trussler – Searching for Population III and nebular-dominated galaxies with JWST: Signatures of a top-heavy IMF in the early Universe

10:15am-10:45am: AM Coffee Break

• Grace Telford – Extremely Metal-Poor O Stars in Nearby Galaxies as Analogs of Ionizing Photon Producers in the Early Universe
• Stefania Salvadori – Near to Far-Field constraints on the first stars’ mass distribution
• Takashi Hosokawa – Pop III (Supermassive) Star Formation with the First Emergence of Cold Accretion

11:30am-12:00pm: Lightning Talks

• Hiroki Kawashimo – Unraveling the role of 12C(α,γ)16O rate for radioactive nickel synthesis in pair-instability supernovae
• Kenji Eric Sadanari – Magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the first star formation: the effect of turbulent magnetic fields
• Romain Lucchesi – Metal-poor stars in dwarf galaxies
• Mihir Kulkarni – Role of the halo accretion history in the formation of Population III stars
• Irene Vanni – First stars’ chemical fingerprints inside and outside galaxies

12:00pm-1:30pm: Lunch

Reionization and heating of the intergalactic medium
(Chair: Christina Eilers)

1:30pm-2:00pm: George Becker – Constraints on Reionization from Quasars and Galaxies
2:00pm-2:45pm: Contributed Talks

• Alberto Saldana-Lopez – The Lyman-alpha and Continuum Origins Survey (LaCOS)
• Andrei Mesinger – Is the timing of reionization a solved problem?
• Emma Ryan-Weber – Reionization of the high-z CGM

2:45pm-3:15pm: PM Coffee Break
3:15pm-3:45pm: E-Posters
3:45pm-4:30pm: Contributed Talks (continued)

• Kai-Feng Chen – Mapping Cosmic Dawn with HERA: Improved Constraints on IGM Heating and the First X-ray Sources
• Hanjue Zhu – Probing the IGM-Galaxy Connection through Lyα Transmission during the EoR
• Xiangyu Jin – Probing the connection between IGM transmission and galaxies during cosmic reionization

4:30pm-5:00pm: Lightning Talks

• Paul Shapiro – New Results from The Cosmic Dawn (“CoDa”) Project: Simulating Reionization and Galaxy Formation
• Joohyun Lee – The Inhomogeneous Rise of Metallicity During the Epoch of Reionization
• Dominika Durovcikova – Chronicling the reionization history with 6 < z < 7 quasars
• Mesut Çalışkan – Reconstructing patchy helium reionization using the cosmic microwave background and large scale structure
• Rennan Barkana – 21-cm cosmology of the epoch of reionization, cosmic dawn, and the dark ages