Revisiting a Chemical Route to the Formation of CN⁻ in the Interstellar Medium

Abstract We discuss the HCN + H − reaction as a path to the formation of CN − , the smallest cyanopolyyne anion observed in several interstellar environments. We first obtain the new ab initio reactive potential energy surface using a full 5D representation, where only the C–N bond is kept fixed, and discuss the neural network procedure employed to yield an accurate fit for the dynamics. The reaction is then investigated by using a quasi-classical trajectory approach to scan the low-temperature range of the dark molecular clouds where the anion has been sighted. Calculations are extended to room temperature to make a successful comparison with existing experimental data. We further present reduced dimensionality modeling of the reaction as a 2D process within a variational-transition state treatment with the inclusion of long-range forces. The dominant role of such forces in producing large reaction rate coefficients is discussed for both treatments, which yield very similar sizes and behavior of such coefficients from 50 to 300 K. The implications of our results for the interstellar medium formation of the CN − species via this chemical route are discussed, suggesting its greater significance over the radiative electron attachment paths, whose rate coefficients were found by recent calculations to be orders of magnitude smaller.