Carbon-loud SDSS BOSS QSO2s at z > 2: High density gas or secondary production of Carbon?

TL;DR

This study analyzes UV emission-line ratios of high-redshift type II quasars, revealing high gas densities and super-Solar carbon abundances, and introduces new criteria for identifying genuine QSO2s with low-density regions.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed comparison of UV emission lines in QSO2s at z > 2 with photoionization models, highlighting chemical abundances and proposing new selection criteria.

Findings

Most quasars are carbon-loud with high Civ/He ii ratios.

Super-Solar carbon and nitrogen abundances are common.

New UV-line criteria effectively identify low-density QSO2s.

Abstract

We study the ultraviolet (UV) emission-line ratios of a sample of 145 type II quasars (QSO2s) from Sloan Digital Sky Survey III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey, and compare against a grid of active galactic nucleus (AGN) photoionization models with a range in gas density, gas chemical abundances, and ionization parameter. Most of the quasars are "carbon-loud", with Civ/He ii ratios that are unusually high for the narrow-line region, implying higher than expected gas density (>10^6 cm^-3) and/or signicantly super-Solar relative carbon abundance. We also find that solar or supersolar nitrogen abundance and metallicity are required in the majority of our sample, with potentially significant variation between objects. Compared to radio galaxies at similar redshifts (HzRGs; z > 2), the QSO2s are offset to higher NV/HeII, CIV/HeII and CIII]/HeII, suggesting systematically higher gas density and/or systematically higher C and N abundances. We find no evidence for a systematic difference in the N/C abundance ratio between the two types of objects. Scatter in the NIV]/CIV ratio implies a significant scatter in the N/C abundance ratio among the QSO2s and HzRGs, consistent with differences in the chemical enrichment histories between objects. Interestingly, we find that adopting secondary behaviour for both N and C alleviates the long-standing "NIV] problem". A subset of the QSO2s and HzRGs also appear to be "silicon-loud", with SiIII] relative fluxes suggesting Si/C and Si/O are an order of magnitude above their Solar values. Finally, we propose new UV-line criteria to select genuine QSO2s with low-density narrow-line regions.