Aims. We investigate the magnetic field at the surface of 48 red giants selected as promising for detection of Stokes V Zeeman signatures in their spectral lines. In our sample, 24 stars are identified from the literature as presenting moderate to strong signs of magnetic activity. An additional 7 stars are identified as those in which thermohaline mixing appears not to have occured, which could be due to hosting a strong magnetic field. Finally, we observed 17 additional very bright stars which enable a sensitive search to be performed with the spectropolarimetric technique. Methods. We use the spectropolarimeters Narval and ESPaDOnS to detect circular polarization within the photospheric absorption lines of our targets. We treat the spectropolarimetric data using the least-squares deconvolution method to create high signal-to-noise ratio mean Stokes V profiles. We also measure the classical S -index activity indicator for the Ca ii H&K lines, and the stellar radial velocity. To infer the evolutionary status of our giants and to interpret our results, we use state-of-the-art stellar evolutionary models with predictions of convective turnover times. Results. We unambiguously detect magnetic fields via Zeeman signatures in 29 of the 48 red giants in our sample. Zeeman signatures are found in all but one of the 24 red giants exhibiting signs of activity, as well as 6 out of 17 bright giant stars. However no detections were obtained in the 7 thermohaline deviant giants. The majority of the magnetically detected giants are either in the first dredge up phase or at the beginning of core He burning, i.e. phases when the convective turnover time is at a maximum: this corresponds to a "magnetic strip" for red giants in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. A close study of the 16 giants with known rotational periods shows that the measured magnetic field strength is tightly correlated with the rotational properties, namely to the rotational period and to the Rossby number Ro. Our results show that the magnetic fields of these giants are produced by a dynamo, possibly of α-ω origin since Ro is in general smaller than unity. Four stars for which the magnetic field is measured to be outstandingly strong with respect to that expected from the rotational period/magnetic field relation or their evolutionary status are interpreted as being probable descendants of magnetic Ap stars. In addition to the weak-field giant Pollux, 4 bright giants (Aldebaran, Alphard, Arcturus, η Psc) are detected with magnetic field strength at the sub-Gauss level. Besides Arcturus, these stars were not considered to be active giants before this study and are very similar in other respects to ordinary giants, with S -index indicating consistency with basal chromospheric flux.Key words. stars: magnetic field -stars: late-type -stars: evolution -stars: rotation Tables 6-8

Abstract. We investigate magnetic field geometry and surface distribution of chemical elements in the rapidly oscillating Ap star HR 3831. Results of the model atmosphere analysis of the spectra of this star are combined with the Hipparcos parallax and evolutionary models to obtain new accurate estimates of the fundamental stellar parameters: T eff = 7650 K, log L/L = 1.09, M/M = 1.77 and an inclination angle i = 68• of the stellar axis of rotation. We find that the variation of the longitudinal magnetic field of HR 3831 and the results of our analysis of the magnetic intensification of Fe  lines in the spectrum of this star are consistent with a dipolar magnetic topology with a magnetic obliquity β = 87• and a polar strength B p = 2.5 kG. We apply a multi-element abundance Doppler imaging inversion code for the analysis of the spectrum variability of HR 3831, and recover surface distributions of 17 chemical elements, including Li, C, O, Na, Mg, Si, Ca, Ti, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ba, Y, Pr, Nd, Eu. Our study represents the most thorough examination of the surface chemical structure in a magnetic Ap star and provides important observational constraints for modelling radiative diffusion in magnetic stars. The exceedingly high quality of some of our spectroscopic data allowed us to reconstruct unprecedented details of abundance distributions, demonstrating a high level of complexity in the surface structure down to the resolution limit of the Doppler maps. The Doppler imaging analysis of HR 3831 forms a basis for subsequent detailed observational investigations and theoretical modelling of non-radial oscillations in this star. We discuss the compound effect of the chemical nonuniformities and pulsational velocity field on the rapid line profile variations, and assess the possibility of identifying pulsation modes by using spatial filtering produced by an inhomogeneous abundance distribution. The results of our study of the surface chemical structure suggest that differences in pulsational behaviour of lines of different ions observed for HR 3831 are not a consequence of horizontal atmospheric inhomogeneities, but predominantly a depth effect.

In this paper we present an homogeneous analysis of photospheric abundances based on high-resolution spectroscopy of a sample of 182 barium stars and candidates. We determined atmospheric parameters, spectroscopic distances, stellar masses, ages, luminosities and scale height, radial velocities, abundances of the Na, Al, alphaelements, iron-peak elements, and s-process elements Y, Zr, La, Ce, and Nd. We employed the local-thermodynamic-equilibrium model atmospheres of Kurucz and the spectral analysis code moog. We found that the metallicities, the temperatures and the surface gravities for barium stars can not be represented by a single gaussian distribution. The abundances of alpha-elements and iron peak elements are similar to those of field giants with the same metallicity. Sodium presents some degree of enrichment in more evolved stars that could be attributed to the NeNa cycle. As expected, the barium stars show overabundance of the elements created by the s-process. By measuring the mean heavy-element abundance pattern as given by the ratio [s/Fe], we found that the barium stars present several degrees of enrichment. We also obtained the [hs/ls] ratio by measuring the photospheric abundances of the Ba-peak and the Zrpeak elements. Our results indicated that the [s/Fe] and the [hs/ls] ratios are strongly anti-correlated with the metallicity. Our kinematical analysis showed that 90% of the barium stars belong to the thin disk population. Based on their luminosities, none of the barium stars are luminous enough to be an AGB star, nor to become self-enriched in the s-process elements. Finally, we determined that the barium stars also follow an age-metallicity relation.