MOON FORMATION
June 2019 - May 2022
This project involved research into how moons form from circumplanetary disks of moonetesimals. More specifically, it looked into how they form around earth-like planets and when multi-moon systems occur. Through the use of SyMBA, which is a numerical integrator, and a variety of sub-programs that I co-wrote in Fortran and MATLAB, this project simulated the physics of moon formation.
SKILLS
Programming
Fortran, MATLAB, bash, command line, debugging, compiling
Simulations
Numerical integrators, setting parameters, submitting batch jobs
Data Analysis
Analyzing matrix data, trend identification
Data Visualization
3D models in MATLAB, time lapses, scatter plots, multi-plot figures
Astronomy
Moon formation, Lindblad resonances, tidal forces, orbits
Physics
Gravitational forces, collisions, fluid-like disks
CONTEXT
01.
Collision
Growing protoplanets collide in giant impacts.
02.
Disk formation
Giant impacts make circumplanetary disks with an inner fluidlike section and an outer section of moonlets (moonetesimals).
03.
Disk accretion
Circumplanetary disks contain moonetesimals that collide to make moons.
04.
Formation parameters
We want to investigate how disk size, surface density distribution, and mass may affect the final moon system.
05.
Multi-moon systems
We want to identify which parameter values yield final systems with more than one moon.
Credit: Ida et. al.
Credit: Salmon & Canup
METHODS
Simulator
We are using a numerical integrator called SyMBA to run n-body simulations of disk evolution under different parameter values.
Simulator changes
We added subroutines within our copy of SyMBA to increase the simulator's complexity. Based on the work of Salmon & Canup, we added a viscously spreading fluidlike inner disk, mass transfer between the inner and outer disks, tidal dissipation, and first-order Lindblad resonances.
Parameter values
We selected high and low values for each of our three disk parameters: initial disk mass, surface density distribution, and disk size.
Analysis
We used MATLAB to analyze the simulation results, by plotting final moon system results such as the number of moons, the final mass, and the final semi-major axis/axes.