SMACK: A New Algorithm for Modeling Collisions and Dynamics of Planetesimals in Debris Disks

TL;DR

SMACK is a novel 3-D algorithm that models the collisional and dynamical evolution of planetesimals in debris disks, capturing asymmetries and their evolution over time.

Contribution

It introduces SMACK, a new stable and accurate method for simulating collisional and dynamical processes in debris disks with planets, including azimuthal asymmetries.

Findings

SMACK reproduces analytic models of disk evolution.

It demonstrates stability over 10^7 years.

It models spiral structures and their disruption in debris rings.

Abstract

We present the Superparticle Model/Algorithm for Collisions in Kuiper belts and debris disks (SMACK), a new method for simultaneously modeling, in 3-D, the collisional and dynamical evolution of planetesimals in a debris disk with planets. SMACK can simulate azimuthal asymmetries and how these asymmetries evolve over time. We show that SMACK is stable to numerical viscosity and numerical heating over 10^7 yr, and that it can reproduce analytic models of disk evolution. We use SMACK to model the evolution of a debris ring containing a planet on an eccentric orbit. Differential precession creates a spiral structure as the ring evolves, but collisions subsequently break up the spiral, leaving a narrower eccentric ring.