Three-dimensional abundance distributions in ApBp star atmospheres: non-axisymmetric magnetic geometry

Abstract Numerical models for the atmospheres of magnetic ApBp stars have in the past dealt only with centred dipole magnetic field geometries. These models include atomic diffusion that stratifies the abundances of metals according to the local magnetic field strength and the direction with respect to the surface normal. The magnetic variations with rotational phase of most well observed stars, however, reveal that this assumption is far too simplistic. In this work, we establish for the first time a three-dimensional model with abundance stratifications arising from atomic diffusion of 16 metals, adopting a non-axisymmetric magnetic field geometry inspired by the configuration derived for a real ApBp star. We find that the chemical elements are distributed in complex patterns in all three dimensions, far from the simple rings that have been proposed as the dominant abundance structures from calculations that assume a perfectly centred dipolar magnetic geometry.