Chemical abundance of z ∼ 6 quasar broad-line regions in the XQR-30 sample

Abstract

The elemental abundances in the broad-line regions of high-redshift quasars trace the chemical evolution in the nuclear regions of massive galaxies in the early Universe. In this work, we study metallicity-sensitive broad emission-line flux ratios in rest-frame UV spectra of 25 high-redshift (5.8 < z < 7.5) quasars observed with the VLT/X-shooter and Gemini/GNIRS instruments, ranging over $\log \left({{M}_{\rm {BH}}/\rm {M}_{\odot }}\right) = 8.4-9.8$ in black hole mass and $\log \left(\rm {L}_{\rm {bol}}/\rm {erg \, s}^{-1}\right) = 46.7-47.7$ in bolometric luminosity. We fit individual spectra and composites generated by binning across quasar properties: bolometric luminosity, black hole mass, and blueshift of the C IV line, finding no redshift evolution in the emission-line ratios by comparing our high-redshift quasars to lower redshift (2.0 < z < 5.0) results presented in the literature. Using CLOUDY-based locally optimally emitting cloud photoionization model relations between metallicity and emission-line flux ratios, we find the observable properties of the broad emission lines to be consistent with emission from gas clouds with metallicity that are at least 2-4 times solar. Our high-redshift measurements also confirm that the blueshift of the C IV emission line is correlated with its equivalent width, which influences line ratios normalized against C IV. When accounting for the C IV blueshift, we find that the rest-frame UV emission-line flux ratios do not correlate appreciably with the black hole mass or bolometric luminosity.