Collisions of planetesimals and formation of planets

TL;DR

This paper compares classical CPU-based and GPU-based numerical simulations of planetesimal collisions to understand terrestrial planet formation, utilizing SPH code to analyze water loss during impacts.

Contribution

It introduces a GPU-accelerated simulation approach for planetesimal collisions and incorporates water loss tracking with SPH, enhancing modeling capabilities.

Findings

GPU simulations handle thousands of bodies efficiently

Water loss during collisions is quantified

Comparison shows consistency between CPU and GPU results

Abstract

We present preliminary results of terrestrial planet formation using on the one hand classical numerical integration of hundreds of small bodies on CPUs and on the other hand -- for comparison reasons -- the results of our GPU code with thousands of small bodies which then merge to larger ones. To be able to determine the outcome of collision events we use our smooth particle hydrodynamics (SPH) code which tracks how water is lost during such events.