Surface structure of the CoRoT CP2 target star HD 50773

TL;DR

This study combines Bayesian photometric mapping and spectropolarimetric techniques to analyze the surface structure, magnetic field, and chemical abundance distribution of the chemically peculiar star HD 50773, revealing a dipolar magnetic field and element correlations.

Contribution

First application of Bayesian star-spot modeling to a CP star's photometric data, integrated with spectropolarimetric magnetic and abundance mapping for comprehensive surface analysis.

Findings

Magnetic field has a dominant dipolar structure.

Surface element abundances correlate with magnetic geometry.

Photometric and spectroscopic maps agree on surface features.

Abstract

We compare surface maps of the chemically peculiar star HD 50773 produced with a Bayesian technique and based on high quality CoRoT photometry with those derived from rotation phase resolved spectropolarimetry. The goal is to investigate the correlation of surface brightness with surface chemical abundance distribution and the stellar magnetic field. The rotational period of the star was determined from a nearly 60 day long continuous light curve obtained during the initial run of CoRoT. Using a Bayesian approach to star-spot modelling, which in this work is applied for the first time for the photometric mapping of a CP star, we derived longitudes, latitudes and radii of four different spot areas. Additional parameters like stellar inclination and the spot's intensities were also determined. The CoRoT observations triggered an extensive ground-based spectroscopic and spectropolarimetric observing campaign and enabled us to obtain 19 different high resolution spectra in Stokes parameters I and V with NARVAL, ESPaDOnS, and SemelPol spectropolarimeters. Doppler and Magnetic Doppler imaging techniques allowed us to derive the magnetic field geometry of the star and the surface abundance distributions of Mg, Si, Ca, Ti, Cr, Fe, Ni, Y, and Cu. We find a dominant dipolar structure of the surface magnetic field. The CoRoT light curve variations and abundances of most elements mapped are correlated with the aforementioned geometry: Cr, Fe, and Si are enhanced around the magnetic poles and coincide with the bright regions on the surface of HD 50773 as predicted by our light curve synthesis and confirmed by photometric imaging.