VARIATIONS IN THE HCN HNC ABUNDANCE RATIO IN THE ORION MOLECULAR CLOUD

Publication Date

1986

Journal or Book Title

ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL

Abstract

Observations of the rare isotopes of HCN and HNC have been used to determine the relative abundance of these two chemical isomers along the central ridge of the Orion molecular cloud. The abundance ratio HCN/HNC decreases by more than an order of magnitude from the relatively warm plateau and hot core sources toward the KL nebula to the colder, more quiescent clouds to the north and south. Even in the cooler regions, however, the ratio is an order of magnitude larger than that found in previous investigations of cold dark clouds. The kinetic temperature in the regions studied is determined from new observations of methylacetylene (CH3CCH), together with other recent estimates of the gas temperature near KL. The results suggest that the warmer portions of the cloud are dominated by different chemical pathways that those in the general instellar cloud material.

Comments

The published version is located at http://adsabs.harvard.edu/doi/10.1086/164692

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1086/164692

Pages

383-391

Volume

310

Issue

1

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS