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V. V. Smith (U. Texas--El Paso & McDonald Observatory)
Although the behavior of boron versus metallicity has been probed in a fairly large sample of halo dwarfs with HST, it is only very recently that boron abundances have been derived in solar metallicity dwarfs. Our effort began with a re-analysis of the solar spectrum with recent atomic data and model atmospheres, so that the sun could be adopted as a standard for the calibration of a linelist in the region of the B I transition at 2497\AAThe solar analysis indicates that boron is not depleted in the solar photosphere. In a study of a sample of 14 field F-G dwarfs with roughly solar metallicities, it is found that the behavior of boron versus [Fe/H] follows the linear, slope one trend that is observed for the halo stars. The average B/Be ratio obtained for the solar metallicity stars is 27±5, compared to the solar ratio of 23. An additional study of boron abundances in the young B- and G-type stars of the Orion association reveals a behavior of boron and oxygen that is opposite of the positive correlation observed for the field stars: the boron and oxygen abundances in Orion are anticorrelated.
This research is supported in part by NASA through contract NAG5-1616, and the grants GO-06520.01.95A, GO-07448.01-96A, and AR-07998.01-96A from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555.