Very metal-poor stars (VMP; [Fe/H] <−2.0) encode crucial information on the early stages of galaxy formation and the chemical evolution of galaxies and their halos, because they preserve fossil records of the nucleosynthesis products of the first generations of stars that formed shortly after the Big Bang, as well as a dynamical imprint of the assembly processes of the Galaxy. In this proposal HDS/Subaru time is requested to obtain high-resolution spectra for 18 of the most metal-poor and dynamically informative stars in the Hamburg-ESO survey. 10 targets possess dynamical properties of the Milky Way’s disk stellar populations and 8 are among the most-bound halo stars. Numerical simulations have revealed two mechanisms of formation for VMP stars in both samples, in-situ or accreted. Detailed abundance analysis will allow to explore chemical abundance signatures possibly associated with these two distinct channels of star formation occurred during the early stages of galaxy formation.
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