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The "Lambda Cold Dark Matter" (ΛCDM) model of cosmic structure formation is eminently falsifiable: once its parameters are fixed on large scales, it becomes testable in the nearby Universe. Observations within our Local Group of galaxies, including the satellite populations of the Milky Way and Andromeda, appear to contradict ΛCDM predictions: there are far fewer satellite galaxies than dark matter halos (the "missing satellites" problem (1, 2)), galaxies seem to avoid the largest substructures (the "too big to fail" problem (3, 4)), and the brightest satellites appear to orbit their host galaxies on a thin plane (the "planes of satellites" problem ( 5)). We present results from the first hydrodynamic simulations of the Local Group that match the observed abundance of galaxies. We find that when baryonic and dark matter are followed simultaneously in the context of a realistic galaxy formation model, all three "problems" are resolved within the ΛCDM paradigm.The ability of the cold dark matter model to predict observables on different scales and at different epochs lies at the root of its remarkable success. The anisotropy of the microwave background radiation and the large scale distribution of galaxies were predicted after the model was formulated, and have since been spectacularly validated by observations. However, observations on scales currently testable only within the Local Group (LG) have yielded results that no simulation to date has been able to reproduce. This has renewed interest in alternatives to ΛCDM, such as warm (6) or self-interacting (7) dark matter.

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Aims. We aim to conduct an assessment of the demographics of substructures in cosmological simulations to identify low-mass stellar systems at high redshift, with a particular focus on globular cluster (GC) candidates. Methods. We explored a suite of high-resolution cosmological simulations from the First Billion Years Project (FiBY) at z ≥ 6. All substructures within the simulations have been identified with the SUBFIND algorithm. From our analysis, two distinct groups of objects emerge. We hypothesise that the substructures in the first group, which appear to have a high baryon fraction (fb ≥ 0.95), are possible infant GC candidates. Objects belonging to the second group have a high stellar fraction (f* ≥ 0.95) and show a potential resemblance to infant ultra-faint dwarf galaxies. Results. The high baryon fraction objects identified in this study are characterised by a stellar content similar to the one observed in present-day GCs, but they still contain a high gas fraction (fgas ∼ 0.95) and a relatively low amount of dark matter. They are compact systems, with densities higher than the average population of FiBY systems at the same stellar mass. Their sizes are consistent with recent estimates based on the first observations of possible proto-GCs at high redshifts. These types of infant GC candidates appear to be more massive and more abundant in massive host galaxies, indicating that the assembly of galaxies via mergers may play an important role in building several GC-host scaling relations. Specifically, we express the relation between the mass of the most massive infant GC and its host stellar mass as log(Mcl) = (0.31 ± 0.15) log (M*, gal + (4.17 ± 1.06). We also report a new relation between the most massive infant GC and the parent specific star formation rate of the form log(Mcl) = (0.85 ± 0.30) log (sSFR)+α that describes the data at both low and high redshift. Finally, we assess the present-day GC mass (GC number) – halo mass relation offers a satisfactory description of the behaviour of our infant GC candidates at high redshift, suggesting that such a relation may be set at formation.