Modelling Stokes parameter spectra of CP stars
Abstract
I review recent progress in the techniques of reconstructing stellar magnetic topologies. Availability of the new high-quality Stokes parameter observations and development of the magnetic Doppler mapping techniques led to a major breakthrough in our ability to study the structure of magnetic fields in CP stars and to reveal the relations between the magnetic field and chemical nonuniformities. In particular, we carried out the first simultaneous and self-consistent reconstructions of stellar magnetic field distributions and accompanying abundance inhomogeneities. Moreover, the magnetic Doppler imaging method was successfully applied to the reconstruction of stellar magnetic topology using spectra in all four Stokes parameters. These magnetic maps of CP stars were derived for the first time without making a priori assumptions about field geometry. Magnetic inversions demonstrate that some well-known CP stars possess magnetic fields of considerably more complicated topology than can be represented by a multipolar expansion of low degree.
- Publication:
-
Magnetic Stars
- Pub Date:
- October 2004
- Bibcode:
- 2004mast.conf...64K
- Keywords:
-
- Chemically peculiar;
- Magnetic fields;
- Polarization;
- 53 Cam;
- a2 CVn;
- CS Vir