SPH simulations of high-speed collisions between asteroids and comets

Abstract

We studied impact processes by means of smoothed-particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations. The method was applied to modeling formation of main-belt families during the cometary bombardment (either early or late, $\sim 3.85\mathrm{Gy}$ ago). If asteroids were bombarded by comets, as predicted by the Nice model, hundreds of asteroid families (catastrophic disruptions of diameter $D\ge 100\mathrm{km}$ bodies) should have been created, but the observed number is only 20. Therefore we computed a standard set of 125 simulations of collisions between representative $D=100\mathrm{km}$ asteroids and high-speed icy projectiles (comets). According to our results, the largest remnant mass $M_{\mathrm{lr}}$ is similar as in low-speed collisions, due to appropriate scaling with the effective strength $Q_{\mathrm{eff}}$, but the largest fragment mass $M_{\mathrm{lf}}$ exhibits systematic differences - it is typically smaller for craterings and bigger for super-catastrophic events. This trend does not, however, explain the non-existence of old families. The respective parametric relations can be used in other statistical (Monte-Carlo) models to better understand collisions between asteroidal and cometary populations.

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Cited by in corpus (2)

• The Role of Giant Impacts in Planet Formation
• Weak S-type asteroids compared to C-type explain the observed size distribution of the main belt