The three-body problem near triple collision

The behaviour of three gravitationally interacting particles in a plane, which approach each other almost on a central configuration, is studied. Linearization near a Lagrangean solution and matching methods lead to the following results: (i) After a close triple encounter in the planar problem of three bodies, one particle generally escapes with an arbitrarily large asymptotic velocity. (ii) Particular cases of actual triple collisions may be extended by the method of Easton.