Seven-body central configurations: a family of central configurations in the spatial seven-body problem

The main result of this paper is the existence of a new family of central configurations in the Newtonian spatial seven-body problem. This family is unusual in that it is a simplex stacked central configuration, i.e the bodies are arranged as concentric three and two dimensional simplexes.      

Finiteness of spatial central configurations in the five-body problem

We strengthen a generic finiteness result due to Moeckel by showing that the number of spatial central configurations of the Newtonian five-body problem with positive masses is finite, apart from some explicitly given special cases of mass values.     

Continua of central configurations with a negative mass in the n-body problem

The number of equivalence classes of central configurations of $n \le 4$ bodies of positive mass is known to be finite, but it remains to be shown if this is true for $n \ge 5$ . By allowing one mass to be negative, Gareth Roberts constructed a continuum of inequivalent planar central configurations of $n = 5$ bodies. We reinterpret Roberts’ example and generalize the construction of his continuum to produce a family of continua of central configurations, each with a single negative mass. These new continua exist in even dimensional spaces $\mathbb R ^k$ for $k \ge 4$ .     

Inverse problem of central configurations and singular curve in the collinear 4-body problem

In this paper, we consider the inverse problem of central configurations of n-body problem. For a given \({q=(q_1, q_2, \ldots, q_n)\in ({\bf R}^d)^n}\), let S(q) be the admissible set of masses denoted \({ S(q)=\{ m=(m_1,m_2, \ldots, m_n)| m_i \in {\bf R}^+, q}\) is a central configuration for m}. For a given \({m\in S(q)}\), let S _m (q) be the permutational admissible set about m = (m ₁, m ₂, . . . , m _n ) denoted

$S_m(q)=\{m^\prime | m^\prime\in S(q),m^\prime \not=m \, {\rm and} \, m^\prime\,{\rm is\, a\, permutation\, of }\, m \}.$

The main discovery in this paper is the existence of a singular curve \({\bar{\Gamma}_{31}}\) on which S _m (q) is a nonempty set for some m in the collinear four-body problem. \({\bar{\Gamma}_{31}}\) is explicitly constructed by a polynomial in two variables. We proved:

1. (1)
   If \({m\in S(q)}\), then either ^# S _m (q) = 0 or ^# S _m (q) = 1.
    
2. (2)
   ^#S _m (q) = 1 only in the following cases:

   1. (i)
      If s = t, then S _m (q) = {(m ₄, m ₃, m ₂, m ₁)}.
       
   2. (ii)
      If \({(s,t)\in \bar{\Gamma}_{31}\setminus \{(\bar{s},\bar{s})\}}\), then either S _m (q) = {(m ₂, m ₄, m ₁, m ₃)} or S _m (q) = {(m ₃, m ₁, m ₄, m ₂)}.
       
    

     

On the number of central configurations in the N-body problem

Central configurations are critical points of the potential function of the n-body problem restricted to the topological sphere where the moment of inertia is equal to constant. For a given set of positive masses m ₁,..., m _n we denote by N(m ₁, ..., m _n, k) the number of central configurations' of the n-body problem in ^k modulus dilatations and rotations. If m _{n 1},..., m _n, k) is finite, then we give a bound of N(m ₁,..., m _n, k) which only depends of n and k.     

New central configurations for the planar 5-body problem

In this paper we show the existence of three new families of planar central configurations for the 5-body problem with the following properties: three bodies are on the vertices of an equilateral triangle and the other two bodies are on a perpendicular bisector.     

A family of stacked central configurations in the planar five-body problem

We study planar central configurations of the five-body problem where three bodies, \(m_1, m_2\) and \(m_3\), are collinear and ordered from left to right, while the other two, \(m_4\) and \(m_5\), are placed symmetrically with respect to the line containing the three collinear bodies. We prove that when the collinear bodies form an Euler central configuration of the three-body problem with \(m_1=m_3\), there exists a new family, missed by Gidea and Llibre (Celest Mech Dyn Astron 106:89–107, 2010), of stacked five-body central configuration where the segments \(m_4m_5\) and \(m_1m_3\) do not intersect.     

New stacked central configurations for the planar 5-body problem

A stacked central configuration in the n-body problem is one that has a proper subset of the n-bodies forming a central configuration. In this paper we study the case where three bodies with masses m ₁, m ₂, m ₃ (bodies 1, 2, 3) form an equilateral central configuration, and the other two with masses m ₄, m ₅ are symmetric with respect to the mediatrix of the segment joining 1 and 2, and they are above the triangle generated by {1, 2, 3}. We show the existence and non-existence of this kind of stacked central configurations for the planar 5-body problem.     

On the central configurations of the planar 1 + 3 body problem

We consider the Newtonian four-body problem in the plane with a dominat mass M. We study the planar central configurations of this problem when the remaining masses are infinitesimal. We obtain two different classes of central configurations depending on the mutual distances between the infinitesimal masses. Both classes exhibit symmetric and non-symmetric configurations. And when two infinitesimal masses are equal, with the help of extended precision arithmetics, we provide evidence that the number of central configurations varies from five to seven.     

The central drop configurations

This paper deals with the investigation of central configurations consisting of a point body, a homogeneous sphere and some drops of homogeneous ideal fluid. The existence of such central configurations, as well as the stability of the drops in linear approximation, has been proved by using the virial method (Chandrasekhar, 1969).     

An analytical proof on certain determinants connected with the collinear central configurations in the n-body problem

In this paper we give a short analytical proof of the inequalities proved by Albouy–Moeckel through computer algebra, in the cases $n=5$ and $n=6$ . These inequalities guarantee that, in the $n$ -body problem, the family of mass vectors making a given collinear configuration a central configuration is 2-dimensional. The induction techniques here may be used to prove the inequalities for general $n$ with more subtle estimation but currently the inequalities still remains unproved for $n\ge 7$ .     

Equilibria in the secular, non-co-planar two-planet problem

We investigate the secular dynamics of a planetary system composed of the parent star and two massive planets in mutually inclined orbits. The dynamics are investigated in wide ranges of semimajor axes ratios (0.1–0.667) and planetary masses ratios (0.25–2), as well as in the whole permitted ranges of the energy and total angular momentum. The secular model is constructed by semi-analytic averaging of the three-body system. We focus on equilibria of the secular Hamiltonian (periodic solutions of the full system) and we analyze their stability. We attempt to classify families of these solutions in terms of the angular momentum integral. We identified new equilibria, yet unknown in the literature. Our results are general and may be applied to a wide class of three-body systems, including configurations with a star and brown dwarfs and substellar objects. We also describe some technical aspects of the seminumerical averaging. The HD 12661 planetary system is investigated as an example configuration.     

Symmetry, bifurcation and stacking of the central configurations of the planar 1+4 body problem

In this work we are interested in the central configurations of the planar $1+4$ body problem where the satellites have different infinitesimal masses and two of them are diametrically opposite in a circle. We can think of this problem as a stacked central configuration too. We show that the configurations are necessarily symmetric and the other satellites have the same mass. Moreover we prove that the number of central configurations in this case is in general one, two or three and, in the special case where the satellites diametrically opposite have the same mass, we prove that the number of central configurations is one or two and give the exact value of the ratio of the masses that provides this bifurcation.     

Central configurations and hyperbolic-elliptic motion in the three-body problem

A refined classification of motion for the planar three-body problem with zero total energy is presented. In addition, the structure and size of the sets of initial conditions are obtained. Limited results for the spatial problem are also given.Proceedings of the Sixth Conference on Mathematical Methods in Celestial Mechanics held at Oberwolfach (West Germany) from 14 to 19 August, 1978.Supported in part by the Natural Science Fund and the University Research Council of Vanderbilt University.     

Librations of central configurations and braided Saturn rings

We give a simple mathematical model for braided rings of a planet based on Maxwell's model for the rings of Saturn.     

The equilibrium configurations of the three-dipole problem

Studying the general kinetic behaviour of a charged particle in the space of three celestial bodies electromagnetic field we give here for the first time the equilibrium configurations of the dynamical system with all the variational equations and integrals. Also we develop the procedure we follow for locating the planar and the three-dimensional equilibrium points demonstrating an extensive numerical investigation of them by giving their number under the influence of the variation of the magnetic field and in all the cases we list their coordinates and energy.