  Asteroid collisions are one of the main processes responsible for the
evolution of bodies in the main belt. Using observations of the Dimorphos
impact by the DART spacecraft, we estimate how asteroid collisions in the main
belt may look in the first hours after the impact. If the DART event is
representative of asteroid collisions with a ~1m size impactor, then the light
curves of these collisions will rise on time scales of about >100s and will
remain bright for about one hour. Next, the light curve will decay on a few
hours time scale to an intermediate luminosity level in which it will remain
for several weeks, before slowly returning to its baseline magnitude. This
estimate suffers from several uncertainties due to, e.g., the diversity of
asteroid composition, their material strength, and spread in collision
velocities. We estimate that the rate of collisions in the main belt with
energy similar or larger than the DART impact is of the order of 7000 per year
(+/-1dex). The large range is due to the uncertainty in the abundance of ~1-m
size asteroids. We estimate the magnitude distribution of such events in the
main belt, and we show that ~6% of these events may peak at magnitudes brighter
than 21. The detection of these events requires a survey with <1hr cadence and
may contribute to our understanding of the asteroids' size distribution,
collisional physics, and dust production. With an adequate survey strategy, new
survey telescopes may regularly detect asteroid collisions.
