Forces
ASSIST includes several forces when calculating trajectories. By default the gravitational forces from the Sun, Moon, planets, and 16 massive asteroids, forces from the most significant gravitational harmonics, general relativistic corrections, and forces which account for position- and velocity-dependent non-gravitational effects are included. You turn each force contribution on or off. This can be used to determine how important each effect is and to increase efficiency.
Configuring forces
The configuration of the forces happens in the assist extras structure after you attach it to a simulation (see the examples on how to do that). The following code removes the higher order gravitational harmonics of the Earth and Sun from the force calculation.
extras = assist.Extras(sim, ephem)
forces = extras.forces
forces.remove("EARTH_HARMONICS")
forces.remove("SUN_HARMONICS")
extras.forces = forces
Warning
forces is just a list of strings.
If you want to remove a force, make sure you first make a copy of the list, remove an item, and then set the copy of the list to the property.
Doing something like extras.forces.remove("EARTH_HARMONICS") does not work.
struct assist_extras* ax = ...
ax->forces ^= ASSIST_FORCE_EARTH_HARMONICS;
ax->forces ^= ASSIST_FORCE_SUN_HARMONICS;
Info
Rather than having one parameter for each force, the forces parameter is an integer which acts as a bitfield.
For example, by default the bit that corresponds to earth harmonics in forces is turned on (set to 1).
The ^= operator is an in-place bitwise xor operator which flips the earth harmonics bit to 0.
Non-gravitational forces
We use the model by Marsen 1973 for non-gravitational forces such as radiation pressure, Yarkovsky effect, and outgassing. For this force to have any effect on your particles, you need to provide a list of three parameters \(A_1\), \(A_2\), and \(A_3\) for each particle. These are the coefficients, in units of \(au/d^2\), for the radial, tangential, and normal components of the non-gravitational forces. The following code demonstrates how this can be done.
Note
This has to be a numpy array.
import numpy as np
...
extras = assist.Extras(sim, ephem)
ex.particle_params = np.array([4.99e-13, -2.90e-14, 0.0])
struct assist_extras* ax = ...
double params[] = {4.99e-13, -2.90e-14, 0.0};
ax->particle_params = params;
Einstein, Infeld, Hoffman GR treatment
The Einstein, Infeld, Hoffman GR treatment (EIH) is very accurate up to order \((v/c)^2\), but the implementation is slow and computationally expensive. By default only the Sun is considered as a source for general relativistic correction. However, for some cases such as when an asteroid has a close encounter with a planet, it can be important to include general relativistic corrections for other planets as well. The following code turns on EIH GR corrections for the Sun and all planets.
Info
The numerical value is 11 because there are 9 planets (including Pluto), the Sun, and the Moon.
extras = assist.Extras(sim, ephem)
extras.gr_eih_sources = 11
struct assist_extras* ax = ...
ax->gr_eih_sources = 11
Available force routines
The following table provides a summary of all available force routines in ASSIST.
| Name (C) | Name (python) | Numerical value (hex) | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ASSIST_FORCE_SUN | SUN | 0x01 | On | Gravitational interaction (\(1/r\)) due to the Sun |
| ASSIST_FORCE_PLANETS | PLANETS | 0x02 | On | Gravitational interaction (\(1/r\)) due to all planets |
| ASSIST_FORCE_ASTEROIDS | ASTEROIDS | 0x04 | On | Gravitational interaction (\(1/r\)) due to 16 massive asteroids |
| ASSIST_FORCE_NON_GRAVITATIONAL | NON_GRAVITATIONAL | 0x08 | On | Non-gravitational effects from radiation pressure, outgassing, etc. Using the Marsden (1973) model. |
| ASSIST_FORCE_EARTH_HARMONICS | EARTH_HARMONICS | 0x10 | On | Earth's \(J_2\), \(J_3\), \(J_4\), \(J_5\) zonal harmonics |
| ASSIST_FORCE_SUN_HARMONICS | SUN_HARMONICS | 0x20 | On | \(J_2\) zonal harmonic of the Sun |
| ASSIST_FORCE_GR_EIH | GR_EIH | 0x40 | On | Einstein, Infeld, Hoffman GR treatment (accurate but expensive) |
| ASSIST_FORCE_GR_SIMPLE | GR_SIMPLE | 0x80 | Off | Nobili and Roxburgh GR treatment |
| ASSIST_FORCE_GR_POTENTIAL | GR_POTENTIAL | 0x100 | Off | Damour and Deruelle GR treatment |