We present results from a 577 ks XMM-Newton observation of SPT-CL J0459-4947, the most distant cluster detected in the South Pole Telescope 2500 square degree (SPT-SZ) survey, and currently the most distant cluster discovered through its Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect. The data confirm the clusters high redshift, $z=1.71 pm 0.02$, in agreement with earlier, less precise optical/IR photometric estimates. From the gas density profile, we estimate a characteristic mass of $M_{500}=(1.8 pm 0.2) times 10^{14}M_{Sun}$; cluster emission is detected above the background to a radius of $sim 2.2 r_{500}$, or approximately the virial radius. The intracluster gas is characterized by an emission-weighted average temperature of $7.2 pm 0.3$ keV and metallicity with respect to Solar of $0.37 pm 0.08$. For the first time at such high redshift, this deep data set provides a measurement of metallicity outside the cluster center; at radii $r > 0.3 r_{500}$, we find it to be $0.33 pm 0.17$, in good agreement with precise measurements at similar radii in the most nearby clusters, supporting an early enrichment scenario in which the bulk of the cluster gas is enriched to a universal metallicity prior to cluster formation, with little to no evolution thereafter. The leverage provided by the high redshift of this cluster tightens by a factor of 2 constraints on evolving metallicity models, when combined with previous measurements at lower redshifts.
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