Numerical modeling of the disruption of Comet D/1993 F2 Shoemaker-Levy 9 representing the progenitor by a gravitationally bound assemblage of randomly shaped polyhedra

TL;DR

This study models the tidal disruption of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 using advanced numerical codes that treat the progenitor as a collection of randomly shaped polyhedra, revealing insights into its structure and disruption process.

Contribution

First application of polyhedral rubble-pile modeling to simulate the tidal breakup of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, incorporating realistic shapes and forces for improved accuracy.

Findings

Progenitor was a rubble-pile about 1.5 km in diameter.

Realistic fragment shapes increase disruption difficulty due to grain locking.

Estimated bulk density of the comet is 300-400 kg/m^3.

Abstract

We advance the modeling of rubble-pile solid bodies by re-examining the tidal breakup of comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, an event that occurred during a 1.33 Jupiter radii encounter with that planet in July 1992. Tidal disruption of the comet nucleus led to a chain of sub-nuclei about 100-1000 m in diameter; these went on to collide with the planet two years later (Chodas & Yeomans 1996). They were intensively studied prior to and during the collisions, making SL9 the best natural benchmark for physical models of small body disruption. For the first time in the study of this event, we use numerical codes treating rubble-piles as collections of polyhedra (Korycansky & Asphaug 2009). This introduces forces of dilatation and friction, and inelastic response. As in our previous studies (Asphaug & Benz 1994,1996) we conclude that the progenitor must have been a rubble-pile, and we obtain approximately the same pre-breakup diameter (about 1.5 km) in our best fits to the data. We find that the inclusion of realistic fragment shapes leads to grain locking and dilatancy, so that even in the absence of friction or other dissipation we find that disruption is overall more difficult than in our spheres-based simulations. We constrain the comet's bulk density at about 300-400 kg/m^3, half that of our spheres-based predictions and consistent with recent estimates derived from spacecraft observations.