The rapidly oscillating Ap star HD 99563 and its distorted dipole pulsation mode

We undertook a time-series photometric multisite campaign for the rapidly oscillating Ap (roAp) star HD 99563 and also acquired mean light observations over four seasons. The pulsations of the star, which show flatter light maxima than minima, can be described with a frequency quintuplet centred on 1557.653 mu Hz and some first harmonics of it. The amplitude of the pulsation is modulated with the rotation period of the star that we determine with 2.91179 +/- 0.00007 d from the analysis of the stellar pulsation spectrum and of the mean light data. We break up the distorted oscillation mode into its pure spherical harmonic components and find it is dominated by the l=1 pulsation, and also has a notable l= 3 contribution, with weak l= 0 and 2 components. The geometrical configuration of the star allows us to see both pulsation poles for about the same amount of time; HD 99563 is only the fourth roAp star for which both pulsation poles are seen and only the third where the distortion of the pulsation modes has been modelled. We point out that HD 99563 is very similar to the well-studied roAp star HR 3831. Finally, we note that the visual companion of HD 99563 is located in the delta Scuti instability strip and may thus show pulsation. We show that if the companion was physical, the roAp star would be a 2.03-M-circle dot, object, seen at a rotational inclination of 44 degrees, which then predicts a magnetic obliquity beta = 86 degrees 4..