Constraints on Circumstellar Material Around the Type Ia Supernova 2007af(1,2)

Patat et al. recently inferred the existence of circumstellar material around a normal Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) for the first time, finding time-variable Na I D absorption lines in the spectrum of SN 2006X. We present high-resolution spectroscopy of the bright SN Ia 2007af at three epochs and search for variability in any of the Na D absorption components. Over the time range from 4 days before to 24 days after maximum light, we find that the host-galaxy Na D lines appear to be of interstellar rather than circumstellar origin and do not vary down to the level of 18 m angstrom (column density of 2 x 10(11) cm(-2)). We limit any circumstellar absorption lines to be weaker than similar to 10 m angstrom (6 x 10(10) cm(-2)). For the case of material distributed in spherically symmetric shells of radius similar to 10(16) cm surrounding the progenitor system, we place an upper limit on the shell mass of similar to(3 x 10(-8))/X M circle dot, where X is the Na ionization fraction. We also show that SN 2007af is a photometrically and spectroscopically normal SN Ia. Assuming that the variable Na D lines in SN 2006X came from circumstellar matter, we therefore conclude that either there is a preferred geometry for the detection of variable absorption components in SNe Ia, or SN 2007af and SN 2006X had different types of progenitor systems.NSF AST-0707769, AST-0607485NASA NAG5-13057, NAG5-13147Sylvia and Jim Katzman FoundationTABASGO FoundationMcDonald Observator