Surface structure of 45 Hercules: an otherwise unremarkable Ap star with a surprisingly weak magnetic field

The origin of magnetic fields and their role in chemical spot formation on magnetic Ap stars is currently not understood. Here, we contribute to solving this problem with a detailed observational characterization of the surface structure of 45 Her, a weak-field Ap star. We find this object to be a long-period, single-lined spectroscopic binary and determine the binary orbit as well as fundamental and atmospheric parameters of the primary. We study magnetic field topology and chemical spot distribution of 45 Her with the help of the Zeeman Doppler imaging technique. Magnetic mapping reveals the stellar surface field to have a distorted dipolar topology with a surface-averaged field strength of 77 G and a dipolar component strength of 119 G - confirming it as one of the weakest well-characterized Ap-star fields known. Despite its feeble magnetic field, 45 Her shows surface chemical inhomogeneities with abundance contrasts of up to 6 dex. Of the four chemical elements studied, O concentrates at the magnetic equator, whereas Ti, Cr, and Fe avoid this region. Apart from this trend, the positions of Fe-peak element spots show no apparent correlation with the magnetic field geometry. No signs of surface differential rotation or temporal evolution of chemical spots on the time-scale of several years were detected. Our findings demonstrate that chemical spot formation does not require strong magnetic fields to proceed and that both the stellar structure and the global field itself remain stable for sub-100 G field strengths contrary to theoretical predictions.

Automated summary

In this study, we observed and characterized the surface structure of 45 Her, a weak-field Ap star, to better understand the origin of magnetic fields and chemical spot formation. With the help of Zeeman Doppler imaging, we found that despite its weak magnetic field, 45 Her exhibits surface chemical inhomogeneities. We also discovered that chemical spot formation does not necessarily require strong magnetic fields and that the stellar structure and global field can remain stable for sub-100 G field strengths contrary to theoretical predictions.