Peering through the Dust: NuSTAR Observations of Two FIRST-2MASS Red
  Quasars
  Some reddened quasars appear to be transitional objects in the merger-induced
black hole growth/galaxy evolution paradigm, where a heavily obscured nucleus
starts to be unveiled by powerful quasar winds evacuating the surrounding
cocoon of dust and gas. Hard X-ray observations are able to peer through this
gas and dust, revealing the properties of circumnuclear obscuration. Here, we
present NuSTAR and XMM-Newton/Chandra observations of FIRST-2MASS selected red
quasars F2M 0830+3759 and F2M 1227+3214. We find that though F2M 0830+3759 is
moderately obscured ($N_{\rm H,Z} = 2.1\pm0.2 \times10^{22}$ cm$^{-2}$) and F2M
1227+3214 is mildly absorbed ($N_{\rm H,Z} = 3.4^{+0.8}_{-0.7}\times10^{21}$
cm$^{-2}$) along the line-of-sight, heavier global obscuration may be present
in both sources, with $N_{\rm H,S} = 3.7^{+4.1}_{-2.6} \times 10^{23}$
cm$^{-2}$ and $< 5.5\times10^{23}$ cm$^{-2}$, for F2M 0830+3759 and F2M
1227+3214, respectively. F2M 0830+3759 also has an excess of soft X-ray
emission below 1 keV which is well accommodated by a model where 7% of the
intrinsic AGN X-ray emission is scattered into the line-of-sight. While F2M
1227+3214 has a dust-to-gas ratio ($E(B-V)$/$N_{\rm H}$) consistent with the
Galactic value, the $E(B-V)$/$N_{\rm H}$ value for F2M 0830+3759 is lower than
the Galactic standard, consistent with the paradigm that the dust resides on
galactic scales while the X-ray reprocessing gas originates within the
dust-sublimation zone of the broad-line-region. The X-ray and 6.1$\mu$m
luminosities of these red quasars are consistent with the empirical relations
derived for high-luminosity, unobscured quasars, extending the parameter space
of obscured AGN previously observed by NuSTAR to higher luminosities.
