beta Pictoris 1997 and 1998 spectra

Lower-velocity FEB absorptions tend to be deeper, narrower and longer lived, in confirmation of earlier studies. The ratio of line strengths for one absorption on 1998 November 27 is evocative of the variations expected for a single FEB making a transit perpendicular to the stellar rotation axis. Analysis with the evaporation model produces similar distributions of orbital parameters to those obtained from the HARPS observations, but when the derived orbital parameters are fed into a model based solely on gravitational dynamics of point masses, the predicted FEB accelerations do not agree with observed values.

More sophisticated modelling is called for. There is no convincing intrinsic variation in the central circumstellar absorption such as might be expected if an HI ring is responsible for the confinement of circumstellar Ca^+^ ions. Our observations are available electronically for further analysis by others.