Bibcode
Guo, Wei-Jian; Fawcett, Victoria A.; Siudek, Małgorzata; Li, Yan-Rong; Cheng, Cheng; Panda, Swayamtrupta; Pan, Zhiwei; Sun, Shengxiu; Greenwell, Claire L.; Alexander, David M.; Moustakas, John; Zhai, Shuo; Jin, Jun-Jie; Cheng, Huaqing; Hu, Jingwei; Chen, Yong-Jie; Zhang, Zhi-Xiang; Wang, Jian-Min
Bibliographical reference
The Astrophysical Journal
Advertised on:
12
2025
Journal
Citations
0
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0
Description
From a parent catalog of 561 changing-look active galactic nuclei (CL-AGNs) identified by W.-J. Guo et al., we investigate the evolutionary sequence of broad emission lines using a redshift-selected subset (0.35 < z < 0.45) of 54 CL-AGNs whose Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) spectra simultaneously cover the Hα, Hβ, and Mg II emission lines. To provide a baseline for comparison, we construct a control sample of 19,897 normal Type 1 AGNs within the same redshift range from the DESI Year 1 data. Through stacked spectral analysis and line-continuum luminosity correlations, we identify a clear evolutionary sequence in all AGNs where broad Hβ fades first, followed by Mg II, and then Hα, as the AGN luminosity declines—consistent with expectations from reverberation mapping. This trend reflects a radially stratified broad-line region (BLR), where each line's responsivity depends on its ionization potential and radial distance from the central engine. In addition, we find that more massive supermassive black holes require lower Eddington ratios to fully suppress broad emission lines, suggesting that the critical accretion threshold for the changing-look phenomenon is mass-dependent. Our results present the first statistical confirmation of a stratified broad-line fading sequence in AGNs, reinforcing the central role of accretion state in shaping BLR structure and visibility.