Collisional excitation of HNC by He found to be stronger than for structural isomer HCN in experiments at the low temperatures of interstellar space.

HCN and its unstable isomer HNC are widely observed throughout the interstellar medium, with the HNC/HCN abundance ratio correlating strongly with temperature. In very cold environments HNC can even appear more abundant than HCN. Here we use a chirped pulse Fourier transform spectrometer to measure the pressure broadening of HCN and HNC, simultaneously formed in situ by laser photolysis and cooled to low temperatures in uniform supersonic flows of helium. Despite the apparent similarity of these systems, we find the HNC-He cross section to be more than twice as big as the HCN-He cross section at 10 K, confirming earlier quantum calculations. Our experimental results are supported by high-level scattering calculations and are also expected to apply with para-H2, demonstrating that HCN and HNC have different collisional excitation properties that strongly influence the derived interstellar abundances.