Chemical Homogeneity in the Orion Association: Oxygen Abundances of B Stars

We present non-LTE oxygen abundances for a sample of B stars in the Orion association. The abundance calculations included non-LTE line formation and used fully blanketed non-LTE model atmospheres. The stellar parameters were the same as adopted in the previous study by Cunha & Lambert (1994). We find that the young Orion stars in this sample of 10 stars are described by a single oxygen abundance with an average value of A(O)=8.78 and a small dispersion of +/- 0.05 dex, which is of the order of the uncertainties in the analysis. This average oxygen abundance compares well with the average oxygen abundance obtained previously in Cunha & Lambert (1994): A(O) = 8.72 +/- 0.13 although this earlier study, based upon non-blanketed model atmospheres in LTE, displayed larger scatter. Small scatter of chemical abundances in Orion B stars had also been found in our previous studies for neon and argon; all based on the same effective temperature scale. The derived oxygen abundance distribution for the Orion association compares well with other results for the oxygen abundance in the solar neighborhood.
To appear in the proceedings of the conference "Assembling the puzzle of the Milky Way", held April 17-22, 2011, in Le Grand-Bornand, France. To be published in EPJ Web of Conferences (Edited by C\'eline Reyl\'e, Annie Robin and Mathias Schultheis)