The HD 61005 debris disk ( “ The Moth ” ) stands out from the growing collection of spatially resolved circumstellar disks by virtue of its unusual swept-back morphology , brightness asymmetries , and dust ring offset .
Despite several suggestions for the physical mechanisms creating these features , no definitive answer has been found .
In this work , we demonstrate the plausibility of a scenario in which the disk material is shaped dynamically by an eccentric , inclined planet .
We present new Keck NIRC2 scattered-light angular differential imaging of the disk at 1.2–2.3 \micron that further constrains its outer morphology ( projected separations of 27–135 AU ) .
We also present complementary Gemini Planet Imager 1.6 \micron total intensity and polarized light detections that probe down to projected separations less than 10 AU .
To test our planet-sculpting hypothesis , we employed secular perturbation theory to construct parent body and dust distributions that informed scattered-light models .
We found that this method produced models with morphological and photometric features similar to those seen in the data , supporting the premise of a planet-perturbed disk .
Briefly , our results indicate a disk parent body population with a semimajor axis of 40–52 AU and an interior planet with an eccentricity of at least 0.2 .
Many permutations of planet mass and semimajor axis are allowed , ranging from an Earth mass at 35 AU to a Jupiter mass at 5 AU .