The effect of suprathermal protons on the physical conditions in Seyfert galaxy nuclei. II

The radiative transfer of Ly-alpha, Ly-beta, and H-alpha in a hydrogen gas containing dust was considered with application to the nuclear gas in Seyfert galaxies. By neglecting the direct escape of line radiation and by averaging over the gas, the radiation transfer in space is suppressed and the frequency transfer only is considered. The dust degrades the line radiation via frequency-independent absorption, converting the energy to infrared luminosity. The source functions in the lines were solved, by use of appropriate approximations, in order to determine under what conditions the narrow component of the Balmer line radiation from the gas can be self-absorbed and degraded without similar degradation of the broad component, which originates from the suprathermals themselves. The results are used to find self-consistent values for the temperature and ionization of the gas for various amounts of dust and various concentrations of suprathermal particles