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Supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei (AGNs) undergo a widerange of accretion rates, which lead to diversity of appearance. We considerthe effects of anisotropic radiation from accretion disks on the broad-lineregion (BLR), from the Shakura-Sunyaev regime to slim disks withsuper-Eddington accretion rates. The geometrically thick funnel of the innerregion of slim disks produces strong self-shadowing effects that lead to verystrong anisotropy of the radiation field. We demonstrate that the degree ofanisotropy of the radiation fields grows with increasing accretion rate. As aresult of this anisotropy, BLR clouds receive different spectral energydistributions depending on their location relative to the disk, resulting indiverse observational appearance of the BLR. We show that the self-shadowing ofthe inner parts of the disk naturally produces two dynamically distinct regionsof the BLR, depending on accretion rate. These two regions manifest themselvesas kinematically distinct components of the broad H$\beta$ line profile withdifferent line widths and fluxes, which jointly account for the Lorentzianprofile generally observed in narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies. In the timedomain, these two components are expected reverberate with different time lagswith respect to the varying ionizing continuum, depending on the accretion rateand the viewing angle of the observer. The diverse appearance of the BLR due tothe anisotropic ionizing energy source can be tested by reverberation mappingof H$\beta$ and other broad emission lines (e.g., \feii), providing a new toolto diagnose the structure and dynamics of the BLR. Other observationalconsequences of our model are also explored.

Self-shadowing Effects of Slim Accretion Disks in Active Galactic Nuclei: Diverse Appearance of the Broad-line Region