Abstract
Hubble Space Telescope STIS observations of the B III resonance line at 2066A
have been obtained and analyzed for two Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) B-type
stars. While boron is not detected in either star, upper limits to the boron
abundance are set, with 12+log(B/H) le 1.6 for both AV 304 and NGC 346-637. The
upper limits are consistent with the relationship between boron and oxygen
previously reported for Galactic disk stars. The SMC upper limits are discussed
in light of that galaxy's star formation history, present oxygen abundance, and
its present cosmic ray flux.
The UV spectrum has also been used to determine the iron-group abundances in
the SMC stars. For AV 304, [Fe/H]=-0.6 pm 0.2, from both an absolute and a
differential analysis (with respect to the Galactic B-type star HD 36591). This
is consistent with results from A-F supergiants in the SMC. A lower iron
abundance is found for NGC 346-637, [Fe/H]=-1.0 pm 0.3, but this is in good
agreement with the supergiant iron abundances in NGC 330,another young SMC
cluster. We propose NGC 346-637 may be an unrecognized binary though, which
complicates its spectral analysis.