Early star formation traced by the highest redshift quasars

The iron abundance relative to alpha-elements in the circumnuclear region of quasars is regarded as a clock of the star formation history and, more specifically, of the enrichment by SNIa. We investigate the iron abundance in a sample of 22 quasars in the redshift range 3.0<z<6.4 by measuring their rest frame UV FeII bump, which is shifted into the near-IR, and by comparing it with the MgII 2798 flux. The observations were performed with a device that can obtain near-IR spectra in the range 0.8-2.4 um in one shot, thereby enabling an optimal removal of the continuum underlying the FeII bump. We detect iron in all quasars including the highest redshift (z=6.4) quasar currently known. The uniform observational technique and the wide redshift range allows a reliable study of the trend of the FeII/MgII ratio with redshift. We find the FeII/MgII ratio is nearly constant at all redshifts, although there is marginal evidence for a higher FeII/MgII ratio in the quasars at z~6. If the FeII/MgII ratio reflects the Fe/alpha abundance, this result suggests that the z~6 quasars have already undergone a major episode of iron enrichment. We discuss the possible implications of this finding for the star formation history at z>6. We also detect a population of weak iron emitters at z~4.5, which are possibly hosted in systems that evolved more slowly. Alternatively, the trend of the FeII/MgII ratio at high redshift may reflect significantly different physical conditions of the circumnuclear gas in such high redshift quasars.