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We present Hubble Space Telescope optical coronagraphic polarization imagingobservations of the dusty debris disk HD 61005. The scattered light intensityimage and polarization structure reveal a highly inclined disk with a clearasymmetric, swept back component, suggestive of significant interaction withthe ambient interstellar medium. The combination of our new data with thepublished 1.1 micron discovery image shows that the grains are blue scatteringwith no strong color gradient as a function of radius, implying predominantlysub-micron sized grains. We investigate possible explanations that couldaccount for the observed swept back, asymmetric morphology. Previous work hassuggested that HD 61005 may be interacting with a cold, unusually denseinterstellar cloud. However, limits on the intervening interstellar gas columndensity from an optical spectrum of HD 61005 in the Na I D lines render thispossibility unlikely. Instead, HD 61005 may be embedded in a more typical warm,low-density cloud that introduces secular perturbations to dust grain orbits.This mechanism can significantly distort the ensemble disk structure within atypical cloud crossing time. For a counterintuitive relative flowdirection--parallel to the disk midplane--we find that the structures generatedby these distortions can very roughly approximate the HD 61005 morphology.Future observational studies constraining the direction of the relativeinterstellar medium flow will thus provide an important constraint for futuremodeling. Independent of the interpretation for HD 61005, we expect thatinterstellar gas drag likely plays a role in producing asymmetries observed inother debris disk systems, such as HD 15115 and Delta-Velorum.

Hubble Space Telescope Optical Imaging of the Eroding Debris Disk HD 61005