We present the results of observations taken with the X-shooter spectrograph devoted to the study of quasars at z ~ 6. This paper focuses on the properties of metals at high redshift traced, in particular, by the C IV doublet absorption systems. Six
objects were observed with resolutions ~27 and 34 km/s in the visual, and 37.5 and 53.5 km/s in the near infrared. We detected 102 C IV lines in the range: 4.35 < z < 6.2 of which 27 are above z ~ 5. Thanks to the characteristics of resolution and spectral coverage of X-shooter, we could also detect 25 Si IV doublets associated with the C IV at z>5. The column density distribution function of the C IV line sample is observed to evolve in redshift for z>~ 5.3, with respect to the normalization defined by low redshift (1.5 < z <4) C IV lines. This behaviour is reflected in the redshift evolution of the C IV cosmic mass density, Omega_CIV, of lines with column density in the range 13.4 < log N(C IV) < 15, which is consistent with a drop of a factor of ~2 for z>~ 5.3. Considering only the stronger C IV lines (13.8 < log N(CIV) < 15), Omega_CIV gently rises by a factor of ~10 between z ~ 6.2 and z~ 1.5 with a possible flattening toward z ~ 0. The increase is well fitted by a power law: Omega_CIV = (2+-1)x10^{-8} [(1+z)/4]^{-3.1+-0.1}. An insight into the properties of the C IV absorbers and their evolution with redshift is obtained by comparing the observed column densities of associated C IV, Si IV and C II absorptions with the output of a set of CLOUDY photo-ionization models. As already claimed by cosmological simulations, we find that C IV is a good tracer of the metallicity in the low-density intergalacitc medium gas at z ~ 5-6 while at z ~ 3 it arises in gas with over density delta ~100.
X-shooter, with its characteristics of resolution, spectral coverage and efficiency, provides a unique opportunity to obtain spectra of the highest-redshift quasars (z ~ 6) that will allow us to carry out successful investigations on key cosmological
issues, from the details of the re-ionization process, to the evolution of the first galaxies and AGNs. In this paper, we present the spectra of three z ~ 6 quasars: one obtained during the commissioning of X-shooter and two in the context of our ongoing GTO programme. Combining this sample with data in the literature, we update the value of the C IV cosmic mass density in the range 4.5 < z < 5, confirming the constant trend with redshift between 2.5 and 5.
We study the three-dimensional distribution of matter at z~2 using high resolution spectra of QSO pairs and simulated spectra drawn from cosmological hydro-dynamical simulations. We present a sample of 15 QSOs, corresponding to 21 baselines of angula
r separations evenly distributed between ~1 and 14 arcmin, observed with the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES) at the European Southern Observatory-Very Large Telescope (ESO-VLT). The observed correlation functions of the transmitted flux in the HI Lya forest transverse to and along the line of sight are in agreement, implying that the distortions in redshift space due to peculiar velocities are relatively small and - within the relatively large error bars - not significant. The clustering signal is significant up to velocity separations of ~300 km/s, corresponding to about 5 h^{-1} comoving Mpc. Compatibility at the 2 sigma level has been found both for the Auto- and Cross-correlation functions and for the set of the Cross correlation coefficients. The analysis focuses in particular on two QSO groups of the sample. Searching for alignments in the redshift space between Lya absorption lines belonging to different lines of sight, it has been possible to discover the presence of a wide HI structures extending over about ten Mpc in comoving space, and give constraints on the sizes of two cosmic under-dense regions in the intergalactic medium.
We revisit the proximity effect produced by QSOs at redshifts 2.1-3.3 applying the FLO approach (Saitta et al. 2008) to a sample of ~6300 Ly-alpha lines fitted in 21 high resolution, high signal-to-noise spectra. This new technique allows to recover
the hydrogen density field from the HI column densities of the lines in the Ly-alpha forest, on the basis of simple assumptions on the physical state of the gas. To minimize the systematic uncertainties that could affect the density recovering in the QSO vicinity, we carefully determined the redshifts of the QSOs in our sample and modelled in detail their spectra to compute the corresponding ionising fluxes. The mean density field obtained from the observed spectra shows a significant over-density in the region within 4 proper Mpc from the QSO position, confirming that QSOs are hosted in high density peaks. The absolute value of rho/<rho> for the peak is uncertain by a factor of ~3, depending on the assumed QSO spectral slope and the minimum HI column density detectable in the spectra. We do not confirm the presence of a significant over-density extending to separations of ~15 proper Mpc from the QSO, claimed in previous works at redshifts <z>=2.5 and 3.8. Our best guess for the UV background ionisation rate based on the IGM mean density recovered by FLO is Gamma_UVB ~ 10^{-12} s^{-1}. However, values of Gamma_UVB ~ 3x10^{-12} s^{-1} could be viable if an inverted temperature-density relation with index alpha=-0.5 is adopted.
[Abridged] We present FLO (From Lines to Over-densities), a new technique to reconstruct the hydrogen density field for the Lya forest lines observed in high resolution QSO spectra. The method is based on the hypothesis that the Lya lines arise in th
e low to intermediate density intergalactic gas and that the Jeans length is the typical size of the Lya absorbers. The reliability of FLO is tested against mock spectra obtained from cosmological simulations. The recovering algorithm gives satisfactory results in the range from the mean density to over-densities of ~30 and reproduces correctly the correlation function of the density field and the 1D power spectrum on scales between ~20 and 60 comoving Mpc. A sample of Lya forests from 22 high resolution QSO spectra is analysed, covering the redshift range 1.7<z<3.5. For each line of sight, we fit Voigt profiles to the lines of the Lya forest, providing the largest, homogeneous sample of fitted Lya lines ever studied. The line number density evolution with redshift follows a power-law relation: dn/dz=(166 +/- 4) [(1+z)/3.5]^{(2.8 +/- 0.2)} (1 sigma errors). The two-point correlation function of lines shows a signal up to separations of ~2 comoving Mpc; weak lines (log N(HI)<13.8) also show a significant clustering but on smaller scales (r<1.5 comoving Mpc). We estimate with FLO the hydrogen density field toward the 22 observed lines of sight. The redshift distribution of the average densities computed for each QSO is consistent with the cosmic mean hydrogen density in the analysed redshift range. The two-point correlation function and the 1D power spectrum of the delta field are estimated. The correlation function shows clustering signal up to ~4 comoving Mpc.
