THE COSMIC ABUNDANCE OF HE-3 .3. IMPROVED LINE PARAMETERS FOR SELECTED SOURCES

We report on our progress in determining the cosmic abundance of He-3. The abundances are derived from observations of the 8.665 GHz hyperfine line of He-3+ in H II regions. Despite observational challenges we have measured the line to high enough precision in some H II regions that the line parameters are no longer the limiting factor in the accuracy of the abundance determinations. We find abundances ranging from He-3/H approximately 1-4 x 10(-5). Since the abundance pattern does not fit that expected from the overall chemical evolution of the Galaxy, we suggest local enrichment of some H II regions, perhaps from Wolf-Rayet winds. If averaged over an initial mass function stars are not a net sink for He-3, then our lowest abundance source places a lower limit on the cosmological parameter eta, the baryon-to-photon ratio. The He-3 lower limit is about the same as the upper limit from H-2, He-4, and Li-7, eta approximately 4 x 10(10).