Paper detail

Magnetic fields of Ap stars from the full Stokes spectropolarimetric observations

Current knowledge about stellar magnetic fields relies almost entirely on circular polarization observations. Few objects have been observed in all four Stokes parameters. The magnetic Ap star HD 24712 (DO Eri, HR 1217) was recently observed in the Stokes IQUV parameters with the HARPSpol instrument at the 3.6-m ESO telescope as part of our project at investigating Ap stars in all four Stokes parameters. The resulting spectra have dense phase coverage, resolving power > 10^5, and S/N ratio of 300-600. These are the highest quality full Stokes observations obtained for any star other than the Sun. We present preliminary results from magnetic Doppler imaging of HD 24712. This analysis is the first step towards obtaining detailed 3-D maps of magnetic fields and abundance structures for HD 24712 and other Ap stars that we currently observe with HARPSpol.