Signatures of massive collisions in debris discs
2014
Violent stochastic
collisionalevents have been invoked as a possible explanation for some debris discs displaying pronounced asymmetries or having a great luminosity excess. So far, no thorough modelling of the consequences of such events has been carried out, mainly because of the extreme numerical challenge of coupling the dynamical and
collisionalevolution of dust. We perform the first fully self-
consistent modellingof the aftermath of massive
breakupsin debris discs. We follow the
collisionaland dynamical evolution of dust released after the
breakupof a Ceres-sized body at 6 AU from its central star. We investigate the duration, magnitude and spatial structure of the signature left by such a violent event, as well as its observational detectability. We use the recently developed LIDT-DD code (Kral et al., 2013), which handles the coupled
collisionaland dynamical evolution of debris discs. The main focus is placed on the complex interplay between destructive collisions, Keplerian dynamics and
radiation pressureforces. We use the GRaTer package to estimate the system's luminosity at different wavelengths. The
breakupof a Ceres-sized body at 6 AU creates an asymmetric dust disc that is homogenized, by the coupled action of collisions and dynamics, on a timescale of a few $10^5$ years. The luminosity excess in the breakup's aftermath should be detectable by mid-IR photometry, from a 30 pc distance, over a period of $\sim 10^6$ years that exceeds the duration of the asymmetric phase of the disc (a few $10^5$ years). As for the asymmetric structures, we derive synthetic images for the SPHERE/VLT and
MIRI/JWST instruments, showing that they should be clearly visible and resolved from a 10 pc distance. Images at 1.6$\mu$m (marginally), 11.4 and 15.5$\mu$m would show the inner disc structures while 23$\mu$m images would display the outer disc asymmetries.
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