  We assess the potential of nuclear starburst disks to obscure the
Seyfert-like AGN that dominate the hard X-ray background at z~1. Over 1200
starburst disk models, based on the theory developed by Thompson et al., are
calculated for five input parameters: the black hole mass, the radial size of
the starburst disk, the dust-to-gas ratio, the efficiency of angular momentum
transport in the disk, and the gas fraction at the outer disk radius. We find
that a large dust-to-gas ratio, a relatively small starburst disk, a
significant gas mass fraction, and efficient angular momentum transport are all
important to produce a starburst disk that can potentially obscure an AGN. The
typical maximum star-formation rate in the disks is ~10 solar masses per year.
Assuming no mass-loss due to outflows, the starburst disks feed gas onto the
black hole at rates sufficient to produce hard X-ray luminosities of
10^{43}-10^{44} erg s^{-1}. The starburst disks themselves should be detectable
at mid-infrared and radio wavelengths; at z=0.8, the predicted fluxes are ~1
mJy at 24microns and ~10-30 microJy at 1.4GHz. Thus, we predict a large
fraction of radio/X-ray matches in future deep radio surveys. The starburst
disks should be easily distinguished from AGN in future 100microns surveys by
Herschel with expected fluxes of ~5 mJy. Any AGN-obscuring starbursts will be
associated with hot dust, independent of AGN heating, resulting in observable
signatures for separating galactic and nuclear star-formation. Finally, because
of the competition between gas and star-formation, nuclear starbursts will be
associated with lower-luminosity AGN. Thus, this phenomenon is a natural
explanation for the observed decrease in the fraction of obscured AGN with
luminosity.
