Magnetic fields of Ap stars from full Stokes vector spectropolarimetric observations

Current knowledge about stellar magnetic fields relies almost entirely on circular polarization observations, with very few objects having been observed in all four Stokes parameters. We are investigating a sample of Ap stars in all four Stokes parameters using the HARPSpol instrument at the 3.6-m ESO telescope. In the context of this project we recently observed the magnetic Ap star HD 24712 (DO Eri, HR 1217). The resulting spectra have dense phase coverage, resolving power > 10⁵, and S/N ratio of 300-600. These are the highest quality full Stokes observations obtained for any star other than the Sun. Furthermore, we have achieved good phase coverage for HD 125248 and HD 119419. Typical four Stokes parameters HARPSpol spectra are shown in Fig. 1. An analysis of the full Stokes vector spectropolarimetric data set of HD 24712 has been published in Rusomarov et al. (2013).