Dust Production from collisions in extrasolar planetary systems The inner Beta-Pictoris disc

摘要

Dust particles observed in extrasolar planetary discs originate fromundetectable km-sized bodies but this valuable information remainsuninteresting if the theoretical link between grains and planetesimals is notproperly known. We outline in this paper a numerical approach we developed inorder to address this issue for the case of dust producing collisionalcascades. The model is based on a particle-in-a-box method. We follow the sizedistribution of particles over eight orders of magnitude in radius taking intoaccount fragmentation and cratering according to different prescriptions. Avery particular attention is paid to the smallest particles, close to theradiation pressure induced cut-off size $R_{pr}$, which are placed on highlyeccentric orbits by the stellar radiation pressure....(abstract continued inthe uploaded paper)