HNC in the C-rich envelope of the AGB star IRC+10216

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

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Scientific paper

IRC+10216 is a well studied AGB star which usually serves as a template for the study of chemistry in carbon-rich circumstellar envelopes. In the present study, we focus on the HNC molecule, a well known isomer of HCN. As a preliminary step to model the HNC lines, we derive a model for the structure of the IRC+10216 envelope. This physical structure is guessed, firstly, from the SED observed by the ISO telescope which enables to derive the dust opacities and temperature as well as the dust mass-loss rate. As a second step, we used CO and 13CO lines (from HIFI and the IRAM 30-m telescope) to obtain the gas kinetic temperature profile as a function of the distance to the star. In this work, we report the detection of various HNC rotational lines observed with the HIFI instrument onboard Herschel. These observations are combined with ground based observations from the IRAM 30-m telescope in order to study the abundance variations of HNC throughout the envelope. A first guess for the abundance of the molecule is obtained using a chemical model. The HNC abundance is then modified so that the observations can be quantitatively reproduced. The physical and chemical processes that could explain the departure from the initial abundance profile are then discussed.

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