2022MNRAS.511.2186S

We carried out a principal component analysis (PCA) of the fluxes of five polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) bands at 6.2, 7.7, 8.6, 11.0, and 11.2 um in the reflection nebula NGC 7023 comprising of the photodissociation region (PDR) and a cavity. We find that only two principal components (PCs) are required to explain the majority of the observed variance in PAH fluxes ( 98 per cent). The first PC ( PC₁), which is the primary driver of the variance, represents the total PAH emission. The second PC (PC₂) is related to the ionization state of PAHs across the nebula. This is consistent with the results of a similar analysis of the PAH emission in NGC 2023. The biplots and the correlations of PCs with the various PAH ratios show that there are two subsets of ionic bands with the 6.2 and 7.7 um bands forming one subset and the 8.6 and 11.0 um bands the other. However, the distinction between these subsets is only present in the PDR. We have also carried out a separate PCA analysis of the PAH fluxes, this time only considering variations in the cavity. This shows that in the cavity, PC₂ is not related to the charge state of PAHs but possibly to structural molecular changes.