Gravitational softening ($ϵ$)

Gravitational softening regularizes a simulation particle's short-distance force, for example by replacing $-Gm/r$ by $-Gm/\sqrt{r^2+{ϵ}^2}$. It suppresses artificial close encounters and effectively raises the diffusion cutoff to order $\max (ϵ,Gm/u^2)$, but alters the resolved force below $ϵ$. Particle number, softening and duration must be chosen together; a point-particle relaxation estimate alone does not specify a simulation's accuracy.

Evaluating the potential of a razor-thin disk at height $ϵ$ gives a softened horizontal force. Its Fourier multiplier is $e^{-kϵ}$ times the razor-thin disk Poisson kernel. This suppresses short wavelengths while retaining the long-wave potential. A real finite-thickness profile generally has a different full reduction factor.

For a vertically separable perturbation with normalized height profile $h(z)$, the midplane gravity reduction factor is $\int h(z)e^{-k|z|}dz$. Its small-$k$ expansion is $1-k⟨|z|⟩+o(k)$ when this first moment is finite. Match it to $e^{-kϵ}$ to get the displayed choice. For $h=e^{-|z|/H}/(2H)$ the exact factor is $(1+kH{)}^{-1}$, demonstrating why no single exponential matches every wavelength.