# Collisions between sintered icy aggregates

## TL;DR

This study uses numerical simulations to investigate how sintering affects collision outcomes of icy dust aggregates, revealing that sintering increases neck strength and alters growth thresholds.

## Contribution

It introduces a new simulation model that incorporates sintering effects into icy aggregate collisions, demonstrating its impact on collisional growth and bouncing behavior.

## Key findings

- Sintering lowers the critical velocity for aggregate growth from 50 m/s to 20 m/s.
- Sintering increases neck strength, leading to more bouncing in compacted aggregates.
- Collisional growth of icy grains is significantly influenced by sintering effects.

## Abstract

Collisions between sintered icy dust aggregates are numerically simulated. If the temperature of an icy aggregate is sufficiently high, sintering promotes molecular transport and a neck between adjacent grains grows. This growth changes the mechanical responses of the neck. We included this effect to a simulation code, and conducted collisional simulations. For porous aggregates, the critical velocity for growth, below which the mass of an aggregate increases, decreased from 50\,m\,s$^{-1}$ for the non-sintered case to 20\,m\,s$^{-1}$. For compacted aggregates, the main collisional outcome is bouncing. These results come from the fact that the strength of the neck is increased by sintering. The numerical results suggest that the collisional growth of icy grain aggregates is strongly affected by sintering.