β Pictoris is the only debris disk star in which
circumstellar atomic gas has been detected and resolved, however, the
information about its spatial distribution is limited. Previous
observations using slit spectroscopy has indicated that the
distribution of gas emission follows that of the dust, revealing
intriguing tilts and asymmetries that could suggest dynamical
interactions between the disk and planetary bodies. Considering
photoevaporation time-scales, the observed gas is probably not
primordial, and a continuous production of atomic gas in the disk
seems likely. In order to better understand the origin of atomic gas
in the disk of β Pic, we have imaged the gas disk by mapping
emission lines from Fe I (at 3860 Å) and Ca II (at 3934 and 3968 Å)
using the fiber facility FLAMES/GIRAFFE at the Very Large Telescope
(VLT) with the large integral-field unit ARGUS, producing the first
complete image of Fe I emission, probing the neutral gas in the disk
plane, and Ca II, probing vertically more extended gas. In this talk I
will present the outcome of our observations and also present results
from subsequent abundance modeling using a gas ionization code for
gas-poor debris disks.
