Connecting the Milky Way with its parent populations at the dawn of time

Description:  A revolution in our understanding of galaxy formation is afoot.  The convergence of increasingly sophisticated cosmological numerical simulations with massive surveys of resolved Milky Way stars and unresolved galaxies at low-to-high redshift is bringing fresh insights into the physics of how galaxies form.  It is in this scenario that JWST came to the fore, delivering data of stupendous quality within a breathtaking range of scales, from mapping the detailed chemical properties of Local Group galaxies, to detecting post-starbust galaxies at z~4.7, and to extending the frontiers of the observed universe well into the double-digit redshift regime.  The time is thus ripe for the community to take stock of the progress made in the past few years and exchange views from theorists and observers of the nearby and high-redshift universe, with the aim of advancing the field on the basis of top existing and upcoming  observational facilities (JWST, ALMA, SDSS-V, WEAVE, 4MOST, MOONS, ELT).  This symposium will bring together observers and theorists to figure out how to approach fundamental questions on galaxy formation, such as: What is the nature of the oldest stars in the Milky Way halo?  How can we use the complex substructure observed in the halo to infer the Milky Way accretion history and the Galactic potential?   How were the stellar haloes and disks of the Milky Way and Andromeda assembled and how do they compare with each other and with those of the general galaxy population?  What were the properties of MW-like galaxy progenitors at early cosmic times?  How did massive disks such as the Milky Way’s form?  Is the Milky Way a common galaxy or an oddity?  How did globular clusters form?  How can we use cosmological numerical simulations to devise an evolutionary path connecting the chemical and dynamical properties of galaxies in the Local Group and nearby universe with those at the highest redshifts?  Can Galactic and/or extragalactic astrophysics constrain the Lambda-CDM paradigm? 

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