Differential Luminosity Response of Balmer-Line Profiles in Galactic B/A Luminous Stars

We investigate the differential luminosity response of the optical Balmer series from H8 to H-alpha in Galactic B5-A5 luminous stars using homogeneous measurements of central depth, FWHM, and equivalent width at a resolving power of approximately 12,000. Direct line-to-line comparisons show a systematic change in the central-depth response toward the lower-order transitions. For the primary 72-star luminosity sample, the fitted luminosity coefficients show an overall positive trend with upper-level quantum number, with a point-estimate gradient of dq/dn = 0.0419. A joint Monte Carlo analysis with 10,000 realisations gives a median dq/dn = 0.0387 and a 95 percent interval from 0.0253 to 0.0532, with no non-positive gradients obtained. The higher-order H8-H-delta coefficients form a statistically unresolved plateau, followed by a well-supported increase in response magnitude from H-delta toward H-alpha. The result is robust to the adopted effective-temperature scale. The FWHM coefficients show no comparable Balmer-order progression, and the directly fitted profile-shape response is consistent with zero from H8 through H-beta. For H-alpha, the full logarithmic sample is not formally significant, whereas removal of the three remaining strongly filled-core profiles yields a significantly negative shape response. The observed behaviour is qualitatively compatible with the systematic variation of pressure broadening across the Balmer series, while the enhanced H-alpha response may additionally reflect non-LTE and wind-related effects.