Broad-line Balmer decrements in blue AGN

The sample, drawn from the Fourth Data Release, comprises 446 low-redshift (z<=0.35) active galactic nuclei (AGN) that have blue optical continua as indicated by the spectral slopes in order to minimize the effect of dust extinction.

We find that (i) the distribution of the intrinsic broad-line H{alpha}/H{beta} ratio can be well described by log-Gaussian, with a peak at H{alpha}/H{beta}=3.06 and a standard deviation of about 0.03dex only; (ii) the Balmer decrement does not correlate with AGN properties such as luminosity, accretion rate and continuum slope, etc.; (iii) on average, the Balmer decrements are found to be only slightly larger in radio-loud sources (3.37) and sources having double-peaked emission-line profiles (3.27) compared to the rest of the sample.