The role of giant collisions in extrasolar systems
Final Report Abstract
The role of giant collisions in both our Solar System and extrasolar systems is fundamental. Giant impacts may lead to the formation of moons, modify internal compositions of planets, modify planetary surfaces and atmospheres, change the spin and obliquity of planets, and create debris. In this project, we extended an existing SPH framework to simulate the collisions between protoplanets and planets. We have conducted simulations of giant collisions between protoplanets and planets on differing mass and length scales and analysed the outcome of these simulations with respect to disk and moon formation, and ejecta properties. We could show that the telescopes of the current generation will not be sufficient to detect exommons, which were generated in our simulations. However, exomoons should be observable with next generation telescopes. Additionally, the statistical analysis of the ejecta properties in our simulations indicate that a small fragment of the initial mass of the collision partners ends up in ejecta. The analysis of our findings of these ejecta with respect to observational constrains by comparison with synthetic images from our simulation data output remains to be done.
Publications
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A versatile smoothed particle hydrodynamics code for graphic cards. Astronomy and Computing, 33, 100410.
Schäfer, C.M.; Wandel, O.J.; Burger, C.; Maindl, T.I.; Malamud, U.; Buruchenko, S.K.; Sfair, R.; Audiffren, H.; Vavilina, E. & Winter, P.M.
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Collisional formation of massive exomoons of superterrestrial exoplanets. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 492(4), 5089-5101.
Malamud, Uri; Perets, Hagai B.; Schäfer, Christoph & Burger, Christoph
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Constraining the early evolution of Venus and Earth through atmospheric Ar, Ne isotope and bulk K/U ratios. Icarus, 339, 113551.
Lammer, H.; Leitzinger, M.; Scherf, M.; Odert, P.; Burger, C.; Kubyshkina, D.; Johnstone, C.; Maindl, T.; Schäfer, C.M.; Güdel, M.; Tosi, N.; Nikolaou, A.; Marcq, E.; Erkaev, N.V.; Noack, L.; Kislyakova, K.G.; Fossati, L.; Pilat-Lohinger, E.; Ragossnig, F. & Dorfi, E.A.
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Protoplanet collisions: Statistical properties of ejecta. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 508(4), 6013-6022.
Crespi, Samuele; Dobbs-Dixon, Ian; Georgakarakos, Nikolaos; Haghighipour, Nader; Maindl, Thomas I.; Schäfer, Christoph M. & Winter, Philip Matthias
