Pulsation in the presence of a strong magnetic field: the roAp star HD 166473

Phase-resolved high-resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) observations of the strongly magnetic roAp star HD 166473 are analysed. HD 166473 was selected as the target of this study because it has one of the strongest magnetic fields of all the roAp stars known with resolved magnetically split lines. Indeed, we show that enhanced pulsation diagnosis can be achieved from consideration of the different pulsation behaviour of the pi and sigma Zeeman components of the resolved spectral lines. This study is based on a time-series of high spectral resolution observations obtained with the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph of the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory. Radial velocity variations due to pulsation are observed in rare earth lines, with amplitudes up to 110 m s(-1). The variations occur with three frequencies, already detected in photometry, but which can in this work be determined with better precision: 1.833, 1.886 and 1.928 mHz. The pulsation amplitudes and phases observed in the rare earth element lines vary with atmospheric height, as is the case in other roAp stars studied in detail. Lines of Fe and of other (mostly non-rare earth) elements do not show any variation to very high precision (1.5 m s(-1) in the case of Fe). The low amplitudes of the observed variations do not allow the original goal of studying differences between the behaviour of the resolved Zeeman line components to be reached; the S/N achieved in the radial velocity determinations is insufficient to establish definitely the possible existence of such differences. Yet the analysis provides a tantalizing hint at the occurrence of variations of the mean magnetic field modulus with the pulsation frequency, with an amplitude of 21 +/- 5 G.