Razor-thin disk relaxation
ID: razor-thin-disk-relaxation
In an unsoftened plane with number surface density and relative speed , an encounter strip has area . Thus the velocity diffusion rate is , dominated by the small-impact cutoff. Setting this cutoff to and requiring a change of order gives . With , and , this is of order , independent of at fixed total mass. The point-particle, zero-thickness limit is singular; fixed softening or nonzero thickness changes it. Numerical coefficients are not controlled by extending weak kicks down to order-one deflections.
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