Formation and fate of low metallicity stars in IllustrisTNG50

Understand

Low metallicity stars give rise to unique spectacular transients and are of immense interest for understanding stellar evolution.

• Their importance has only grown further with the recent detections of mergers of stellar mass black holes that likely originate mainly from low metallicity progenitor systems.
• Moreover, the formation of low metallicity stars is intricately linked to galaxy evolution, in particular to early enrichment and to later accretion and mixing of lower metallicity gas.
• Because low metallicity stars are difficult to observe directly, cosmological simulations are crucial for understanding their formation.