Abstract : | Cosmic dust particles play a crucial role in the overall evolution and structure of the Universe. In order to study the origin and fate of these dust particles it is necessary to understand their different physical parameters. Telescopic observations of comets, asteroids, ISM, etc., laboratory experiments and satellite missions with in-situ measurements (STARDUST, ROSETTA), etc., provide significant information about the physical parameters such as size, shape, bulk density, size distribution, aspect ratio and composition. Since, dust particles have irregular shapes, it is necessary to develop algorithms and/or techniques to craft these shapes from regular shapes like spheres or ellipsoids. This work introduces a software tool called REST (Rough Ellipsoid Structure Tool) which uses simple algorithms and modules to break an ellipsoid or a super-ellipsoid into rough, poked and agglomerated structures. Initially, we use Zubko’s algorithm for rough, poked and broken structures in case of ellipsoids. The algorithm crafts an ellipsoid (made up of N number of cubic cells) based on randomly selected seed cells defined as material and space from the initial structure and allows the remaining cells to acquire composition (material/space) of the nearest seed cell. We extend this algorithm for super-ellipsoids to create rough super-ellipsoids and poked super-ellipsoids having high aspect ratio that can be used to study interstellar dust found in the neighbourhood of star clusters and star forming regions. This tool can be used to generate Agglomerated Debris particles which are used to simulate comet and asteroid dust. Another use case could be to generate atmospheric aerosols having homogeneous as well as inhomogeneous composition.
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