NuSTAR Observations of Reddened Quasars

Reddened quasars selected from the FIRST and 2MASS surveys appear to be in a transitional link in the merger-induced black hole growth/galaxy evolution model. We present the NuSTAR and XMM-Newton/Chandra observations of 2 FIRST-2MASS red quasars, F2M 0830+3759 and F2M 1227+3214. The combination of broad-band X-ray coverage and physically-motivated spectral models allow us to characterize the X-ray obscuration in these systems. We find that much heavier obscuration is present globally than along the line-of-sight for F2M 0830+3759, and that F2M 1227+3214 may also have much higher amounts of global versus line-of-sight obscuration. These results are consistent with the paradigm that red quasars are evacuating their heavy cocoon of dust and gas, unveiling the central nucleus while higher column densities of gas are present globally, playing a role in reprocessing the intrinsic emission.