Prior to becoming chondritic meteorites, primordial solids were a poorly consolidated mix of mm-scale igneous inclusions (chondrules) and high-porosity sub-μm dust (matrix). We used high-resolution numerical simulations to track the effect of impact-induced compaction on these materials. Here we show that impact velocities as low as 1.5 km s−1 were capable of heating the matrix to >1,000 K, with pressure–temperature varying by >10 GPa and >1,000 K over ~100 μm. Chondrules were unaffected, acting as heat-sinks: matrix temperature excursions were brief. As impact-induced compaction was a primary and ubiquitous process, our new understanding of its effects requires that key aspects of the chondrite record be re-evaluated: palaeomagnetism, petrography and variability in shock level across meteorite groups. Our data suggest a lithification mechanism for meteorites, and provide a ‘speed limit’ constraint on major compressive impacts that is inconsistent with recent models of solar system orbital architecture that require an early, rapid phase of main-belt collisional evolution.

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Abstract-Over the last few decades, rapid improvement of computer capabilities has allowed impact cratering to be modeled with increasing complexity and realism, and has paved the way for a new era of numerical modeling of the impact process, including full, three-dimensional (3D) simulations. When properly benchmarked and validated against observation, computer models offer a powerful tool for understanding the mechanics of impact crater formation. This work presents results from the first phase of a project to benchmark and validate shock codes. A variety of 2D and 3D codes were used in this study, from commercial products like AUTODYN, to codes developed within the scientific community like SOVA, SPH, ZEUS-MP, iSALE, and codes developed at U.S. National Laboratories like CTH, SAGE/RAGE, and ALE3D. Benchmark calculations of shock wave propagation in aluminum-on-aluminum impacts were performed to examine the agreement between codes for simple idealized problems. The benchmark simulations show that variability in code results is to be expected due to differences in the underlying solution algorithm of each code, artificial stability parameters, spatial and temporal resolution, and material models. Overall, the inter-code variability in peak shock pressure as a function of distance is around 10 to 20%. In general, if the impactor is resolved by at least 20 cells across its radius, the underestimation of peak shock pressure due to spatial resolution is less than 10%. In addition to the benchmark tests, three validation tests were performed to examine the ability of the codes to reproduce the time evolution of crater radius and depth observed in vertical laboratory impacts in water and two well-characterized aluminum alloys. Results from these calculations are in good agreement with experiments. There appears to be a general tendency of shock physics codes to underestimate the radius of the forming crater. Overall, the discrepancy between the model and experiment results is between 10 and 20%, similar to the inter-code variability.

We use time resolved scanning Kerr microscopy and analytical and numerical calculations to demonstrate coupling of uniform global microwave field to propagating spin waves for emerging magnonic architectures. The coupling is mediated by the local dynamic dipolar field produced by the magnetization of a resonantly driven all-metallic magnetic microwave-to-spin-wave transducer. The local dipolar field can exceed that of the incident microwave field by one order of magnitude. Our numerical simulations demonstrate the ability of the transducer to unidirectionally emit coherent exchange spin waves of nanoscale wavelengths with the emission direction programmed by the magnetic state of the transducer.

Abstract-We have developed a statistical framework that uses collisional evolution models, shock physics modeling, and scaling laws to determine the range of plausible collisional histories for individual meteorite parent bodies. It is likely that those parent bodies that were not catastrophically disrupted sustained hundreds of impacts on their surfacescompacting, heating, and mixing the outer layers; it is highly unlikely that many parent bodies escaped without any impacts processing the outer few kilometers. The first 10-20 Myr were the most important time for impacts, both in terms of the number of impacts and the increase of specific internal energy due to impacts. The model has been applied to evaluate the proposed impact histories of several meteorite parent bodies: up to 10 parent bodies that were not disrupted in the first 100 Myr experienced a vaporizing collision of the type necessary to produce the metal inclusions and chondrules on the CB chondrite parent; around 1-5% of bodies that were catastrophically disrupted after 12 Myr sustained impacts at times that match the heating events recorded on the IAB/winonaite parent body; more than 75% of 100 km radius parent bodies, which survived past 100 Myr without being disrupted, sustained an impact that excavates to the depth required for mixing in the outer layers of the H-chondrite parent body; and to protect the magnetic field on the CV chondrite parent body, the crust would have had to have been thick (approximately 20 km) to prevent it being punctured by impacts.

Impacts between planetesimals have largely been ruled out as a heat source in the early Solar System, by calculations that show them to be an inefficient heat source and unlikely to cause global heating. However, the long-term, localized thermal effects of impacts on planetesimals have never been fully quantified. Here, we simulate a range of impact scenarios between planetesimals to determine the post-impact thermal histories of the parent bodies, and hence the importance of impact heating in the thermal evolution of planetesimals. We find on a local scale that heating material to petrologic type 6 is achievable for a range of impact velocities and initial porosities, and impact melting is possible in porous material at a velocity of > 4 km/s. Burial of heated impactor material beneath the impact crater is common, insulating that material and allowing the parent body to retain the heat for extended periods (~ millions of years). Cooling rates at 773 K are typically 1 -1000 K/Ma, matching a wide range of measurements of metallographic cooling rates from chondritic materials. While the heating presented here is localized to the impact site, multiple impacts over the lifetime of a parent body are likely to have occurred. Moreover, as most meteorite samples are on the centimeter to meter scale, the localized effects of impact heating cannot be ignored.3

An all-optical experiment long utilized to image phonons excited by ultrashort optical pulses has been applied to a magnetic sample. In addition to circular ripples due to surface acoustic waves, we observe an X-shaped pattern formed by propagating spin waves. The emission of spin waves from the optical pulse epicenter in the form of collimated beams is qualitatively reproduced by micromagnetic simulations. We explain the observed pattern in terms of the group velocity distribution of Damon-Eshbach magnetostatic spin waves in the reciprocal space and the wave vector spectrum of the focused ultrafast laser pulse. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.097201 PACS numbers: 75.30.Ds, 75.50.Bb, 75.78.Cd, 75.78.Jp The recent proliferation of studies on the interaction of femtosecond optical pulses with magnetic materials [1] has been primarily concerned with exploration and understanding of novel types of ultrafast magnetic phase transitions and the associated promise of a new paradigm of high speed magnetic data storage technology [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. Far less attention has been paid to the possibility of using the ultrafast optical excitation to induce magnetization precession and propagating spin waves [14][15][16][17][18]. However, such practice could lead to important applications (at least in the context of fundamental research) in the emerging field of ''magnonics'' [19,20]. An important breakthrough was recently achieved by Satoh et al., who demonstrated alloptical imaging of propagating magnetostatic spin waves of about 100 m wavelength excited by ultrafast optical pulses in a ferromagnetic dielectric [18]. However, despite the importance of magnetic dielectrics and long wavelength magnetostatic spin waves [21], the ultimate goal of magnonics requires that much shorter wavelength spin waves be excited and studied in magnetic thin films and nanostructures [16,19].In this Letter, we demonstrate that femtosecond optical pulses focused to a diffraction limited spot by a high quality microscope objective are able to excite spin waves at specific locations on the surface of a thin magnetic film. The propagation of the optically excited spin waves is imaged using a setup labeled here as time resolved optically pumped scanning optical microscope (TROPSOM), which has applications beyond the fields of magnonics and optomagnetism. The employed experimental scheme has been utilized to image optically excited propagating phonons [22], which are also observed in our experiments. As compared to the more conventional methods of spin wave excitation by current carrying microstrips [19,21], TROPSOM yields the benefit of broadband point magnonic sources, which could otherwise be only obtained by means of complex nanofabrication [23]. Inspired by the recent demonstrations of spin wave emission by resonant transducers under a uniform microwave field [24,25], one could even imagine building similar devices to enable effective conversion of the femtosecond laser light into a tailored spin wave emission pattern on a ...