Collision excitation of sodium cyanide molecule by helium at low temperature

Abstract

ABSTRACT Cyanides/isocyanides are the most common metal-containing molecules in interstellar medium. In this work, quantum scattering calculations were carried out to determine the rotational (de-)excitation cross-sections of the most stable form of the sodium cyanide molecule, t-NaCN, in collision with the helium atom. Rate coefficients for the first 43 rotational levels (up to ${j_{{K_a}{K_c}}}$ = 63,3) of NaCN were determined for kinetic temperatures ranging from 1 to 30 K. Prior to that, we constructed a new three-dimensional potential energy surface (3D-PES) for the t-NaCN–He interacting system. These electronic structure computations are done at the CCSD(T)-F12/aug-cc-pVTZ level of theory. Computations show the dominance of Δj = ΔKc = −1 transitions, which is related to the dissymmetric shape of the t-NaCN–He 3D-PES. The NaCN–He rate coefficients are of the same order of magnitude (∼10−11 cm3.s−1) as those of other metal CN-containing molecules such as MgCN and AlCN in collision with He. This work is a contribution for understanding and modelling the abundances and chemistry of nitriles in astrophysical media.