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Green, S., 1984: Metastability of isoformyl ions in collisions with helium and hydrogen. Astrophys. J., 277, 900-906, doi:10.1086/161761.
The stability of HOC+ ions under conditions in interstellar molecular clouds is considered. In particular, the possibility that collisions with helium or hydrogen will induce isomerization to the stable HCO+ form is examined theoretically. Portions of the electronic potential energy surfaces for interaction with He and H atoms are obtained from standard quantum mechanical calculations. Collisions with He atoms are found to be totally ineffective for inducing isomerization. Collisions with H atoms are found to be ineffective at low interstellar temperatures owing to a small (about 500 K) barrier in the entrance channel; at higher temperatures where this barrier can be overcome, however, collisions with hydrogen atoms do result in conversion to the stable HCO+ form. Although detailed calculations are not presented, it is argued that low-energy collisions with H2 molecules are also ineffective in destroying the metastable ion.
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