High velocity features in the spectra of the Type Ia SN 1999ee: a   property of the explosion or evidence of circumstellar interaction?
  The near-maximum spectra of the Type Ia SN 1999ee are reviewed. Two narrow absorption features corresponding to the strongest component of the CaII IR triplet appear in the spectra from 7 days before to 2 days after B-band maximum, at a high velocity (~22,000 km/s). Before these features emerge, the CaII IR triplet has an anomalously high velocity, indicating that the narrow features were still blended with the main, photospheric component. High-velocity CaII absorption has been observed in other SNe Ia, but usually detached from the photospheric component. Furthermore, the SiII 6355A line is observed at a comparably high velocity (~20,000 km/s) 9 and 7 days before B maximum, but then it suddenly shifts to much lower velocities. Synthetic spectra are used to reproduce the data under various scenarios. An abundance enhancement requires an outer region dominated by Si and Ca, the origin of which is not easy to explain in terms of nuclear burning. A density enhancement leads to a good reproduction of the spectral evolution if a mass of ~0.10 Msun is added at velocities between 16,000 and 28,000 km/s, and it may result from a perturbation, possibly angular, of the explosion. An improved match to the CaII IR triplet at the earliest epoch can be obtained if the outermost part of this modified density profile is assumed to be dominated by H (~0.004 Msun above 24,000 km/s). Line broadening is then the result of increased electron scattering. This H may be the result of interaction between the ejecta and circumstellar material. 
P.A. Mazzali (1,2,3,4), S. Benetti (5), M. Stehle (4,6), D. Branch   (7), J. Deng (2,3), K. Maeda (2,3), K. Nomoto (2,3), M....