Magnetic Doppler imaging of

Abstract

Context. Strong organized magnetic fields have been studied in the upper main sequence chemically peculiar stars for more than half a century. However, only recently have observational methods and numerical techniques become sufficiently mature to allow us to record and interpret high-resolution four Stokes parameter spectra, leading to the first assumption-free magnetic field models of these stars. Aims. Here we present a detailed magnetic Doppler imaging analysis of the spectropolarimetric observations of the prototypical magnetic Ap star α2 CVn. This is the second star for which the magnetic field topology and horizontal chemical abundance inhomogeneities have been inferred directly from phase-resolved observations of line profiles in all four Stokes parameters, free from the traditional assumption of a low-order multipolar field geometry. Methods. We interpret the rotational modulation of the circular and linear polarization profiles of the strong \ion{Fe}{ii} and \ion{Cr}{ii} lines in the spectra of α2 CVn recorded with the M