Mercury and OrbFit packages for the numerical integration of planetary systems: implementation of the Yarkovsky and YORP effects

TL;DR

This paper introduces new implementations of the Yarkovsky and YORP effects in the Mercury and OrbFit N-body simulation codes, enabling more accurate long-term modeling of small Solar System objects including collisions and spin changes.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive implementation of coupled Yarkovsky and YORP effects in these widely used N-body codes, including stochastic effects and collision modeling.

Findings

Enhanced simulation accuracy for small Solar System bodies.

Inclusion of stochastic effects for statistical studies.

Facilitates long-term dynamical evolution research.

Abstract

For studies of the long-term evolution of small Solar System objects, it is fundamental to add the Yarkovsky and Yarkovsky-O'Keefe-Radzievskii-Paddack (YORP) effects in the dynamical model. Still, implementations of these effects in publicly available N-body codes are often lacking, or the effects are implemented using significantly simplified models. In this paper, we present an implementation of the coupled Yarkovsky/YORP effects in the mercury and OrbFit $N$-body codes. Along with these two effects, we also included the effects of non-destructive collisions and rotationally induced breakups to model the asteroid spin state properly. Given the stochastic nature of many incorporated effects, the software is suitable for statistical dynamical studies. Here we explained the scientific aspect of the implementation, while technical details will be made freely available along with the source codes.