A Window On The Earliest Star Formation: Extreme Photoionization
  Conditions of a High-Ionization, Low-Metallicity Lensed Galaxy at z~2
  We report new observations of SL2SJ021737-051329, a lens system consisting of
a bright arc at z=1.84435, magnified ~17x by a massive galaxy at z=0.65.
SL2SJ0217 is a low-mass (M <10^9 M*), low-metallicity (Z~1/20 Z*) galaxy, with
extreme star-forming conditions that produce strong nebular UV emission lines
in the absence of any apparent outflows. Here we present several notable
features from rest-frame UV Keck/LRIS spectroscopy: (1) Very strong narrow
emission lines are measured for CIV 1548,1550, HeII 1640, OIII] 1661,1666,
SiIII] 1883,1892, and CIII] 1907,1909. (2) Double-peaked LyA emission is
observed with a dominant blue peak and centered near the systemic velocity. (3)
The low- and high-ionization absorption features indicate very little or no
outflowing gas along the sightline to the lensed galaxy. The relative emission
line strengths can be reproduced with a very high-ionization, low-metallicity
starburst with binaries, with the exception of He \ii, which indicates an
additional ionization source is needed. We rule out large contributions from
AGN and shocks to the photoionization budget, suggesting that the emission
features requiring the hardest radiation field likely result from extreme
stellar populations that are beyond the capabilities of current models.
Therefore, SL2S0217 serves as a template for the extreme conditions that are
important for reionization and thought to be more common in the early Universe.
