No CrossRef data available.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 May 2016
We present a heuristic model for the collisional evolution of material in a debris disk. This is used to consider the probability that the 2-3% brightness clump observed in the sub-mm Fomalhaut disk is caused by stochastic collisions between large planetesimals. While this simple model finds that the probability that the clump is caused by collisions is low (about 1 in 80,000), a more detailed model is required to ascertain its true likelihood.