Particle motions in Maxwell’s ring dynamical systems

The focus of this contribution is an effort to review and report the main results obtained so far, concerning the periodic motions of a small body in the combined gravitational field created by a regular ν-gon arrangement of ν big bodies with equal masses, where ν > 7, and another central primary with different mass. Various types of planar periodic motions are presented and networks of characteristic curves of families are depicted, in order to show their distribution in the space of the initial conditions, as well as the evolution of their members that are also examined under the variation of the parameters of the system. Furthermore, the regions of the allowed three-dimensional motions, as well as their variation, are illustrated by means of the zero-velocity surfaces. All this new material is added to the already existing data, and completes thus the profile of the dynamical behavior of the system.