No Redshift Evolution in the Fe ii/Mg ii Flux Ratios of Quasars across Cosmic Time

Abstract

The Fe ii/Mg ii emission line flux ratio in quasar spectra serves as a proxy for the relative Fe to α-element abundances in the broad-line regions of quasars. Due to the expected different enrichment timescales of the two elements, they can be used as a cosmic clock in the early Universe. We present a study of the Fe ii/Mg ii ratios in a sample of luminous quasars exploiting high-quality near-IR spectra taken primarily by the XQR-30 program with VLT XSHOOTER. These quasars have a median bolometric luminosity of log(L bol[erg s−1]) ∼ 47.3 and cover a redshift range of z = 6.0-6.6. The median value of the measured Fe ii/Mg ii ratios is ∼7.9 with a normalized median absolute deviation of ∼2.2. In order to trace the cosmic evolution of Fe ii/Mg ii in an unbiased manner, we select two comparison samples of quasars with similar luminosities and high-quality spectra from the literature, one at intermediate redshifts (z = 3.5-4.8) and the other at low redshifts (z = 1.0-2.0). We perform the same spectral analysis for all these quasars, including the usage of the same iron template, the same spectral fitting method, and the same wavelength fitting windows. We find no significant redshift evolution in the Fe ii/Mg ii ratio over the wide redshift range from z = 1 to 6.6. The result is consistent with previous studies and supports the scenario of a rapid iron enrichment in the vicinity of accreting supermassive black holes at high redshift.