On the existence of a very metal-poor disc in the Milky Way

There has been a discussion for many years on whether the disc in the Milky Way extends down to low metallicity. We aim to address the question by employing a large sample of giant stars with radial velocities and homogeneous metallicities based on the Gaia DR3 XP spectra. We study the 3D velocity distribution of stars in various metallicity ranges, including the very-metal poor regime (VMP, [M/H] $<-2.0$). We find that a clear disc population starts to emerge only around [M/H] $\sim -1.3$, and is not visible for [M/H] $<-1.6$. Using Gaussian Mixture Modeling (GMM), we show that there are two halo populations in the VMP regime: one stationary and one with a net prograde rotation of $\sim80\,\mathrm{km/s}$. In this low-metallicity range, we are able to place constraints on the contribution of a rotation-supported disc sub-population to a maximum of $\sim 3$\%. We compare our results to previous claims of discy VMP stars in both observations and simulations and find that having a prograde halo component could explain most of these.