The Ca II emission lines of SN 1987A

We study the evolution of the forbidden Ca II 7300 A and Ca II 8600 A emission lines in the spectrum SN 1987A. We can explain the observations with a model in which (1) the lines come from about 1.7 x 10 exp -4 solar mass of calcium distributed with filling factor about 0.1 in a sphere expanding with velocity 2500 km/s; (2) the electron number density is given by 4 x 10 exp 9/cu cm/(t/100d)-cubed; (3) the gas temperature decreases from T roughly 6400 K at 200 days to T roughly 3900 K at 500 days; and (4) ultraviolet pumping in the Ca II 3934 A, 3969 A (K, H) lines is required to explain the line ratios for t greater than about 350 days. The mass of calcium in our model is consistent with the LMC abundance of calcium in about 5 solar mass of hydrogen in the inner envelope of SN 1987A. If more calcium is produced by supernova nucleosynthesis, it must be in dense clumps that are too cool to emit the forbidden Ca II 7300 A and Ca II 8600 A lines.