One important driver for the search for extremely metal poor (EMP)
stars is the hope that they will give us clues to the conditions under
which the first stars formed. I will discuss measures of orbital
energy and angular momentum for nearby halo stars and EMP stars which
suggest that this connection is not quite so simple: we expect the
very first stars to form in our Galaxy to have high binding energy and
low angular momentum, but this is not true of many EMP stars.
To begin viewing slides, click on the first slide below. (Or, view as pdf.)