  This work explores the implications of the Jovian Early Bombardment (JEB) for
the evolution of the primordial Vesta, in particular in terms of crater
saturation, crustal excavation and surface erosion. Both scenarios assuming the
planetesimals having formed in a quiescent or a turbulent nebula were explored
and both primordial and collisionally evolved size-frequency distributions were
considered. The results obtained indicate that, if the basaltic surface of
Vesta were already formed, the JEB would saturate it with craters and could
erode it to depths that vary from hundreds of meters to tens of kilometres. In
the latter cases, the surface erosion caused by the JEB would be comparable
with the thickness of the eucritic and diogenitic layers of Vesta. In the cases
where the global surface erosion is limited, however, large impactors, if too
abundant, can excavate the whole crust and extract significant quantities of
material from the vestan mantle, incompatible with the present understanding of
HED meteorites. This appears to be the case if the impacting planetesimals
formed in a turbulent nebula and Jupiter migrated by 0.5 AU or more. Globally,
the results obtained suggest that the scenarios where the planetesimal formed
in a quiescent nebula and Jupiter underwent a modest migration (i.e. up to 0.5
AU) are the most consistent with our understanding of Vesta, even if the cases
of planetesimals formed in a turbulent nebula with Jupiter undergoing limited
(i.e. about 0.25 AU) or no migration cannot be ruled out. Recent results on the
differentiation of the asteroid, however, raised the possibility that Vesta
originally possessed a now-lost undifferentiated crust. In this case, the
favoured scenarios would be those where the planetesimals formed in a quiescent
nebula and Jupiter underwent a more significant migration (i.e. between 0.5 AU
and 1 AU).
