Be-9 abundances in population II stars - Implications for light element nucleosynthesis

Upper limits on the Be-9 abundances in four metal-deficient dwarfs were obtained by applying the spectrum synthesis technique to high-resolution spectra at 3130 A. The abundance of Be-9 is seen to track the iron deficiency rather than maintain a nearly uniform abundance as is seen for the neighboring light element, Li-7. The deficiency of Be-9 permits the cosmic-ray spallation contribution to the Li-7 abundance of HD 140283 to be stated as less than 1 percent. The very low abundance of Be-9 can be used to constrain recent nonuniform density models for the big bang, which predict significant primordial abundances for this element. 35 refs.