Doppler Imaging of Ap Stars

Abstract

Doppler imaging, a technique which inverts spectral line profile variations of an Ap star into a two-dimensional abundance maps, provides new observational constraints on diffusion mechanism in the presence of a global magnetic field. A programme is presented here with the aim to obtain abundance distributions of at least five elements on each star, in order to study how different diffusion processes act under influence of a stellar magnetic field. The importance of this multi-element approach is demonstrated, by presenting the abundance maps of helium, magnesium, silicon, chromium and iron for the magnetic B9pSi star CU Virginis.

5 pages, 3 figures, to appear in: Proc. of the 26th workshop of the European Working Group on CP stars, eds. P. North, A. Schnell and J. Ziznovsky, Contrib. Astr. Obs. Skalnate Pleso Vol. 27, No 3