The isotopic mixture of barium in the metal-poor subgiant HD 140283

Analyses of the abundances of neutron-capture elements have led to the belief that these elements in metal-poor stars are r-process products with relative abundances closely resembling those found in the Solar system. This picture was challenged by Magain, who found that a pure r-process mix of the barium isotopes was inconsistent with the mix of odd to even barium isotopes derived from analysis of the Ba ii line at 4554 Angstrom in the spectrum of the metal-poor subgiant HD 140283. In this paper, we address Magain's challenge using new high-resolution high signal-to-noise spectra of HD 140283, and find, in contrast to his result, that a solar-like r-process isotopic mixture provides a fair fit to the observed 4554- Angstrom profile.