Relative abundances were determined for the CN, HCN, HNC, and HC3N molecular species during radio surveys of six locations in the Taurus dark cloud complex, and in one cold dark cloud (L 183) outside Taurus. Abundances were also obtained for C-13 isotopic species in HCN and HNC. The observations were carried out with the NRAO 11-meter and 43-meter telescopes using the same spatial resolution for each location. It is found that the column densities of HCN, HNC, HC3N were less than those of NH3 by factors in the range 1.0-0.01. The HNC system was more abundant than the HC3N system by about a factor of about 10. The HNC/HCN column density ratios were all within the 3-10 range in the cold dark clouds. The column densities of HCN, HNC, and HC3N were found to decrease with increasing NH3 column density, and some possible explanations for this phenomenon are discussed.
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Churchwell et al. (1984) studied this question.