Collisional evolution of small body populations

Asteroid collisional evolution studies are aimed at understanding how collisions have shaped observed features of the asteroid population in order to further our understanding of the formation and evolution of our solar system. We review progress in developing more realistic collisional scaling laws, the effects of relaxing over-simplifying assumptions used in earlier collisional evolution studies, and the implications of including observables, such as collisionally produced families, on constraining the collisional history of main-belt asteroids. Also, collisional studies are extended to include Jupiter Trojans and the Hilda population. Results from collisional evolution models strongly suggest that the mass of main-belt asteroids was only modestly larger, by up to a factor of 5 or so, at the time that the present collisionally erosive environment was established, presumably early in solar system history. Major problems remain in identifying the appropriate scaling algorithm for determining the threshold for catastrophic disruption as well as understanding the resulting size and velocity distribution of fragments. Dynamical effects need to be combined with collisional simulations in order to understand the structure of the small asteroid size distribution.