Particle Number Dependence of The $N$-Body Simulations of Moon Formation

Abstract

The formation of the Moon from the circumterrestrial disk has been investigated by using $N$-body simulations with the number $N$ of particles limited from $10^4$ to $10^5$. We develop an $N$-body simulation code on multiple Pezy-SC processors and deploy FDPS (Framework for Developing Particle Simulators) to deal with large number of particles. We execute several high- and extra-high-resolution $N$-body simulations of lunar accretion from a circumterrestrial disk of debris generated by a giant impact on Earth. The number of particles is up to $10^7$, in which 1 particle corresponds to a 10 km-size satellitesimal. We find that the spiral structures inside the Roche limit radius differ between low-resolution simulations ($N\le 10^5$) and high-resolution simulations ($N\ge 10^6$). According to this difference, angular momentum fluxes, which determine the accretion timescale of the Moon also depend on the numerical resolution.

25 pages, 14 figures, 2 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ