THE ABUNDANCES OF THE ELEMENTS IN SHARP-LINED EARLY-TYPE STARS FROM IUE HIGH-DISPERSION SPECTROGRAMS .1. CR, MN, FE, NI, AND CO

The current study was undertaken to test the viability of IUE archives as a source of information elemental species unavailable from (ground -based) coude spectra. The first step in this endeavor is to check the consistency of abundances obtained from IUE material and those derive d from the ground especially as reported in a series of papers by Adel man and coworkers. In this paper we examine the Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni, and Co abundances derived from co-added IUE high-dispersion LWP or LWR spect rograms of four HgMn stars and five normal main-sequence B and A stars . This material represents a significant improvement over that obtaina ble directly from the IUE archives. We also find good agreement with t wo independent model atmosphere and synthesis codes: Kurucz's SYNTHE a nd programs developed at the University of Michigan. For the iron grou p, we find good (approximately less-than-or-equal-to 0.2 dex) agreemen t between UV and optical determinations. We are optimistic that the IU E archives may be usefully exploited for abundance work, especially fo r elements unavailable in ground-based spectra.