Mass-Weighted Symplectic Forms for the N-Body Problem

Mass-weighted symplectic forms provide a unified framework for the treatment of both finite and vanishingly small masses in the N-body problem. These forms are introduced, compared to previous approaches, and their properties are discussed. Applications to symplectic mappings, the definition of action-angle variables for the Kepler problem, and Hamiltonian perturbation theory are outlined This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.