A New Database of Giant Impacts over a Wide Range of Masses and with Material Strength: A First Analysis of Outcomes

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Emsenhuber, Alexandre, Asphaug, Erik, Cambioni, Saverio, Gabriel, Travis S. J., Schwartz, Stephen R., Melikyan, Robert E., Denton, C. Adeene
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Emsenhuber, Alexandre
Asphaug, Erik
Cambioni, Saverio
Gabriel, Travis S. J.
Schwartz, Stephen R.
Melikyan, Robert E.
Denton, C. Adeene
author_facet Emsenhuber, Alexandre
Asphaug, Erik
Cambioni, Saverio
Gabriel, Travis S. J.
Schwartz, Stephen R.
Melikyan, Robert E.
Denton, C. Adeene
contents In the late stage of terrestrial planet formation, planets are predicted to undergo pairwise collisions known as giant impacts. Here we present a high-resolution database of giant impacts for differentiated colliding bodies of iron-silicate composition, with target masses ranging from 10^-4 M_Earth up to super-Earths (5 M_Earth). We vary impactor-to-target mass ratio, core-mantle (iron-silicate) fraction, impact velocity, and impact angle. Strength in the form of friction is included in all simulations. We find that due to strength, collisions with bodies smaller than about 2*10^-3 M_Earth can result in irregular shapes, compound core structures, and captured binaries. We observe that the characteristic escaping velocity of smaller remnants (debris) is approximately half of the impact velocity, significantly faster than currently assumed in N-body simulations of planet formation. Incorporating these results in N-body planet formation studies would provide more realistic debris-debris and debris-planet interactions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_17356
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A New Database of Giant Impacts over a Wide Range of Masses and with Material Strength: A First Analysis of Outcomes
Emsenhuber, Alexandre
Asphaug, Erik
Cambioni, Saverio
Gabriel, Travis S. J.
Schwartz, Stephen R.
Melikyan, Robert E.
Denton, C. Adeene
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
In the late stage of terrestrial planet formation, planets are predicted to undergo pairwise collisions known as giant impacts. Here we present a high-resolution database of giant impacts for differentiated colliding bodies of iron-silicate composition, with target masses ranging from 10^-4 M_Earth up to super-Earths (5 M_Earth). We vary impactor-to-target mass ratio, core-mantle (iron-silicate) fraction, impact velocity, and impact angle. Strength in the form of friction is included in all simulations. We find that due to strength, collisions with bodies smaller than about 2*10^-3 M_Earth can result in irregular shapes, compound core structures, and captured binaries. We observe that the characteristic escaping velocity of smaller remnants (debris) is approximately half of the impact velocity, significantly faster than currently assumed in N-body simulations of planet formation. Incorporating these results in N-body planet formation studies would provide more realistic debris-debris and debris-planet interactions.
title A New Database of Giant Impacts over a Wide Range of Masses and with Material Strength: A First Analysis of Outcomes
topic Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.17356