2006BaltA..15..131C

We report the detection of the GeIII, ZrIV, PbIII and PbIV resonance lines in Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) spectra of hot subdwarf B stars (sdB). We analyze 18 stars that cover the effective temperature domain for this class of stars. We carry out an abundance analysis and demonstrate that Ge, Zr and Pb abundances are higher than the ones observed in the Sun's photosphere in almost every star. We perform radiative levitation calculations on Ge, Zr and Pb, and show that the theory predicts higher Ge and Zr abundances than the observations. Moreover, the large scatter of observed abundances cannot be explained by the radiative levitation alone. This suggests that other mechanisms must be taken into account for explaining the abundances of Ge, Zr and Pb in the atmospheres of sdB stars.