A new approach to modeling the surface magnetic fields of chemically peculiar stars

A reconstruction of the line-of-sight component and modulus of the surface- magnetic-field vector is proposed, using a model with artificial point sour ces of the magnetic field with "virtual" magnetic charges in the body of a star. This approach for the direct calculation of the field from the superp osition of the potentials of individual magnetic charges enables the recons truction of most possible configurations of the surface magnetic: field of a star. Proper choice of the axis orientations for the three coordinate sys tems used makes it possible to obtain a simple representation for the vecto r components of the surface magnetic field. In a dipole approximation, the expression for the line-of-sight component of the magnetic field averaged o ver the visible disk of the star reduces to the form obtained in other stud ies. (C) 2001 MAIK "Nauka/Interperiodica.