Other
Scientific paper
Jan 1999
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999aas...193.9613l&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, 193rd AAS Meeting, #96.13; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 31, p.670
Other
Scientific paper
There is increasing evidence that many or most km-sized bodies in the Solar System may be rubble piles, that is, gravitationally bound aggregates of material susceptible to disruption or distortion by planetary tides (Richardson, Bottke, & Love 1998, Icarus 134, 47). If this is true, then collisions may occur in free space between rubble piles. Here we present preliminary results from a project to map the parameter space of rubble-pile collisions. The results will assist in parameterization of collision outcomes for simulations of Solar System formation and may give insight into scaling laws for catastrophic disruption. We use a direct numerical method (Richardson, Quinn, Stadel, & Lake 1998, submitted) to evolve the particle positions and velocities under the constraints of gravity and physical collisions. We test the dependence of the collision outcomes on the impact speed and impact parameter, as well as the spin and size of the colliding bodies. We use both spheroidal and ellipsoidal shapes, the former as a control and the latter as a more representative model of real bodies. Speeds are kept low so that the maximum strain on the component material does not exceed the crushing strength. This is appropriate for dynamically cool systems, such as in the primordial disk during the early stage of planet formation or possibly in the present-day classical Kuiper Belt. We compare our results to analytic estimates and to stellar system collision models. Other parameters, such as the coefficient of restitution (dissipation), bulk density, and particle resolution will be investigated systematically in future work.
Leinhardt Zoë M.
Quinn Terry
Richardson Chris D.
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