A six-part collisional model of the main asteroid belt

Abstract

In this work, we construct a new model for the collisional evolution of the main asteroid belt. Our goals are to test the scaling law of Benz and Asphaug (Benz, W., Asphaug, E. [1999]. Icarus, 142, 5–20) and ascertain if it can be used for the whole belt. We want to find initial size–frequency distributions (SFDs) for the considered six parts of the belt (inner, middle, “pristine”, outer, Cybele zone, high-inclination region) and to verify if the number of synthetic asteroid families created during the simulation matches the number of observed families as well. We used new observational data from the WISE satellite (Masiero et al., 2011) to construct the observed SFDs. We simulate mutual collisions of asteroids with a modified version of the Boulder code (Morbidelli, A., et al. [2009]. Icarus, 204, 558–573), where the results of hydrodynamic (SPH) simulations of Durda et al. (Durda, D.D., et al. [2007]. Icarus, 498–516) and Benavidez et al. (Benavidez, P.G., et al. [2012]. 219, 57–76) are included. Because material characteristics can significantly affect breakups, we created two models — for monolithic asteroids and for rubble-piles. To explain the observed SFDs in the size range D=1D=1 to 10 km we have to also account for dynamical depletion due to the Yarkovsky effect. The assumption of (purely) rubble-pile asteroids leads to a significantly worse fit to the observed data, so that we can conclude that majority of main-belt asteroids are rather monolithic. Our work may also serve as a motivation for further SPH simulations of disruptions of smaller targets (with a parent body size of the order of 1 km).