Abstract
Hubble Space Telescope imagery has revealed dust features in the central regions of many (50%-80%) nearby bright elliptical galaxies. If these features are an indication of an underlying smooth diffuse dust distribution, then the interpretation of central surface brightness and color profiles in elliptical galaxies becomes significantly more difficult. In this Letter, diagnostics for constraining the presence of such an underlying central dust distribution are presented. We show that easily detectable central color gradients and flattened central surface brightness profiles can be induced by even small amounts of smoothly distributed dust (~100 M☉). Conversely, combinations of flat surface brightness profiles and flat color gradients or steep surface brightness profiles and steep color gradients are unlikely to be caused by dust. Taken as a whole, these results provide a simple observational tautology for constraining the existence of smooth diffuse dust distributions in the central regions of elliptical galaxies.
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