SMACK: A NEW ALGORITHM FOR MODELING COLLISIONS AND DYNAMICS OF PLANETESIMALS IN DEBRIS DISKS

Journal Article · Sun Nov 10 00:00:00 EST 2013 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/777/2/144· OSTI ID:22270565

Nesvold, Erika R. ^[1]; Kuchner, Marc J.; Pan, Margaret ^[2]; Rein, Hanno ^[3]

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1. Department of Physics, University of Maryland Baltimore County, 1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250 (United States)
2. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Exoplanets and Stellar Astrophysics Laboratory, Code 667, Greenbelt, MD 21230 (United States)
3. Institute for Advanced Study, 1 Einstein Drive, Princeton, NJ 08540 (United States)

We present the Superparticle-Method/Algorithm for Collisions in Kuiper belts and debris disks (SMACK), a new method for simultaneously modeling, in three dimensions, the collisional and dynamical evolution of planetesimals in a debris disk with planets. SMACK can simulate azimuthal asymmetries and how these asymmetries evolve over time. We show that SMACK is stable to numerical viscosity and numerical heating over 10{sup 7} yr and that it can reproduce analytic models of disk evolution. We use SMACK to model the evolution of a debris ring containing a planet on an eccentric orbit. Differential precession creates a spiral structure as the ring evolves, but collisions subsequently break up the spiral, leaving a narrower eccentric ring.

• OSTI ID: 22270565
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 777, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
ALGORITHMS
ASTROPHYSICS
ASYMMETRY
COLLISIONS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
EVOLUTION
ORBITS
PLANETS
PRECESSION
VISCOSITY