  An accretion disk in an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) harbors and shields
dust from external illumination: at the mid-plane of the disk around a $M_{{\rm
BH}}=10^{7}M_{\odot}$ black hole, dust can exist at $0.1$pc from the black
hole, compared to 0.5pc outside of the disk. We construct a physical model of a
disk region approximately located between the radius of dust sublimation at the
disk mid-plane and the radius at which dust sublimes at the disk surface. Our
main conclusion is that for a wide range of model parameters such as local
accretion rate and/or opacity, the accretion disk's own radiation pressure on
dust significantly influences its vertical structure. In addition to being
highly convective, such a disk can transform from geometrically thin to slim.
Our model fits into the narrative of a "failed wind" scenario of Czerny &
Hryniewicz (2011) and the "compact torus" model of Baskin & Laor (2018),
incorporating them as variations of the radiative dusty disk model.
