# Giant Impacts and Debris Disk Morphology

**Authors:** Joshua W. Jones, Eugene Chiang, Gaspard Duchene, Paul Kalas, Thomas M. Esposito  
**arXiv:** [2303.10189](https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.10189)  
**Date:** 2023-03-17  
**Summary page:** https://www.summarizepaper.com/en/paper/2303.10189v1/

## Key points

- A recent study by Joshua W. Jones and colleagues investigated non-axisymmetric shapes of debris disks in scattered light
- Appearance of a disk depends on how its constituent Keplerian ellipses are arranged, with more apsidal alignment resulting in greater non-axisymmetry
- Apsidal alignment is automatic for fragments released from catastrophic collisions between solid bodies
- The team synthesized scattered light images and thermal emission images of giant impact debris to test their hypothesis
- Scenarios involving gravitational forcing or gas drag do not align orbits as well
- The team compared their synthesized images with observations and offered a scorecard assessing whether the scattered light asymmetries in several debris disks are best explained by giant impacts, gravitational perturbations or sculpting by the interstellar medium
- This study sheds new light on our understanding of debris disks' morphology and provides valuable insights into how they form and evolve over time.

## Summary

In a recent study, Joshua W. Jones and colleagues investigated the non-axisymmetric shapes of certain debris disks in scattered light which had remained unexplained until now. The team found that the appearance of a disk depends on how its constituent Keplerian ellipses are arranged, with more apsidal alignment resulting in greater non-axisymmetry. They proposed that apsidal alignment is automatic for fragments released from catastrophic collisions between solid bodies and synthesized scattered light images and thermal emission images of such giant impact debris to test their hypothesis. This is particularly difficult to reproduce in other scenarios involving gravitational forcing or gas drag, which do not align orbits as well. The team compared their synthesized images with observations and offered a scorecard assessing whether the scattered light asymmetries in HD 15115, HD 32297, HD 61005, HD 111520, HD 106906, beta Pic and AU Mic are best explained by giant impacts, gravitational perturbations or sculpting by the interstellar medium. This study sheds new light on our understanding of debris disks' morphology and provides valuable insights into how they form and evolve over time.