CII in the Interstellar Medium: Excitation by H2 Revisited

C$^+$ is a critical constituent of many regions of the interstellar medium, as it can be a major reservoir of carbon and, under a wide range of conditions, the dominant gas coolant. Emission from its 158$mu$m fine structure line is used to trace the structure of photon dominated regions in the Milky Way and is often employed as a measure of the star formation rate in external galaxies. Under most conditions, the emission from the single [CII] line is proportional to the collisional excitation rate coefficient. We here used improved calculations of the deexcitation rate of [CII] by collisions with H$_2$ to calculate more accurate expressions for interstellar C$^+$ fine structure emission, its critical density, and its cooling rate. The collision rates in the new quantum calculation are $sim$ 25% larger than those previously available, and narrow the difference between rates for excitation by atomic and molecular hydrogen. This results in [CII] excitation being quasi-independent of the molecular fraction and thus dependent only on the total hydrogen particle density. A convenient expression for the cooling rate at temperatures between 20 K and 400 K, assuming an LTE H$_2$ ortho to para ration is $Lambda ({rm LTE~OPR}) = left(11.5 + 4.0,e^{-100,mathrm K/T^{rm kin}}right);e^{-91.25,mathrm K/T^{rm kin}},n ({rm C}^{+}),n({rm H}_2)times 10^{-24};{rm ergs}~{rm cm}^{-3}~{rm s}^{-1}$. The present work should allow more accurate and convenient analysis of the [CII] line emission and its cooling.