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Register a new userSpectral stability, spectral flow and circular relative equilibria for the Newtonian $n$-body problem
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For the Newtonian (gravitational) $n$-body problem in the Euclidean $d$-dimensional space, $dge 2$, the simplest possible periodic solutions are provided by circular relative equilibria, (RE) for short, namely solutions in which each body rigidly rotates about the center of mass and the configuration of the whole system is constant in time and central (or, more generally, balanced) configuration. For $dle 3$, the only possible (RE) are planar, but in dimension four it is possible to get truly four dimensional (RE). A classical problem in celestial mechanics aims at relating the (in-)stability properties of a (RE) to the index properties of the central (or, more generally, balanced) configuration generating it. In this paper, we provide sufficient conditions that imply the spectral instability of planar and non-planar (RE) in $mathbb R^4$ generated by a central configuration, thus answering some of the questions raised in cite[Page 63]{Moe14}. As a corollary, we retrieve a classical result of Hu and Sun cite{HS09} on the linear instability of planar (RE) whose generating central configuration is non-degenerate and has odd Morse index, and fix a gap in the statement of cite[Theorem 1]{BJP14} about the spectral instability of planar (RE) whose (possibly degenerate) generating central configuration has odd Morse index. The key ingredients are a new formula of independent interest that allows to compute the spectral flow of a path of symmetric matrices having degenerate starting point, and a symplectic decomposition of the phase space of the linearized Hamiltonian system along a given (RE) which is inspired by Meyer and Schmidts planar decomposition cite{MS05} and which allows us to rule out the uninteresting part of the dynamics corresponding to the translational and (partially) to the rotational symmetry of the problem.
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For the Newtonian (gravitational) $n$-body problem in the Euclidean $d$-dimensional space, the simplest possible solutions are provided by those rigid motions (homographic solutions) in which each body moves along a Keplerian orbit and the configuration of the $n$-body is a constant up to rotations and scalings named textit{central configuration}. For $dleq 3$, the only possible homographic motions are those given by central configurations. For $d geq 4$ instead, new possibilities arise due to the higher complexity of the orthogonal group $O(d)$, as observed by Albouy and Chenciner. For instance, in $mathbb R^4$ it is possible to rotate in two mutually orthogonal planes with different angular velocities. This produces a new balance between gravitational forces and centrifugal forces providing new periodic and quasi-periodic motions. So, for $dgeq 4$ there is a wider class of $S$-textit{balanced configurations} (containing the central ones) providing simple solutions of the $n$-body problem, which can be characterized as well through critical point theory. In this paper, we first provide a lower bound on the number of balanced (non-central) configurations in $mathbb R^d$, for arbitrary $dgeq 4$, and establish a version of the $45^circ$-theorem for balanced configurations, thus answering some questions raised by Moeckel. Also, a careful study of the asymptotics of the coefficients of the Poincare polynomial of the collision free configuration sphere will enable us to derive some rather unexpected qualitative consequences on the count of $S$-balanced configurations. In the last part of the paper, we focus on the case $d=4$ and provide a lower bound on the number of periodic and quasi-periodic motions of the gravitational $n$-body problem which improves a previous celebrated result of McCord.
We develop a general stability theory for equilibrium points of Poisson dynamical systems and relative equilibria of Hamiltonian systems with symmetries, including several generalisations of the Energy-Casimir and Energy-Momentum methods. Using a topological generalisation of Lyapunovs result that an extremal critical point of a conserved quantity is stable, we show that a Poisson equilibrium is stable if it is an isolated point in the intersection of a level set of a conserved function with a subset of the phase space that is related to the non-Hausdorff nature of the symplectic leaf space at that point. This criterion is applied to generalise the Energy-Momentum method to Hamiltonian systems which are invariant under non-compact symmetry groups for which the coadjoint orbit space is not Hausdorff. We also show that a $G$-stable relative equilibrium satisfies the stronger condition of being $A$-stable, where $A$ is a specific group-theoretically defined subset of $G$ which contains the momentum isotropy subgroup of the relative equilibrium.
For the gravitational $n$-body problem, the simplest motions are provided by those rigid motions in which each body moves along a Keplerian orbit and the shape of the system is a constant (up to rotations and scalings) configuration featuring suitable properties. While in dimension $d leq 3$ the configuration must be central, in dimension $d geq 4$ new possibilities arise due to the complexity of the orthogonal group, and indeed there is a wider class of $S$-balanced configurations, containing central ones, which yield simple solutions of the $n$-body problem. Starting from recent results of the first and third authors, we study the existence of continua of bifurcations branching from a trivial branch of collinear $S$-balanced configurations and provide an estimate from below on the number of bifurcation instants. In the last part of the paper, by using the continuation method, we explicitly display the bifurcation branches in the case of the three body problem for different choices of the masses.
We describe the linear and nonlinear stability and instability of certain symmetric configurations of point vortices on the sphere forming relative equilibria. These configurations consist of one or two rings, and a ring with one or two polar vortices. Such configurations have dihedral symmetry, and the symmetry is used to block diagonalize the relevant matrices, to distinguish the subspaces on which their eigenvalues need to be calculated, and also to describe the bifurcations that occur as eigenvalues pass through zero.
The motion of a point mass in the J2 problem is generalized to that of a rigid body in a J2 gravity field. The linear and nonlinear stability of the classical type of relative equilibria of the rigid body, which have been obtained in our previous paper, are studied in the framework of geometric mechanics with the second-order gravitational potential. Non-canonical Hamiltonian structure of the problem, i.e., Poisson tensor, Casimir functions and equations of motion, are obtained through a Poisson reduction process by means of the symmetry of the problem. The linear system matrix at the relative equilibria is given through the multiplication of the Poisson tensor and Hessian matrix of the variational Lagrangian. Based on the characteristic equation of the linear system matrix, the conditions of linear stability of the relative equilibria are obtained. The conditions of nonlinear stability of the relative equilibria are derived with the energy-Casimir method through the projected Hessian matrix of the variational Lagrangian. With the stability conditions obtained, both the linear and nonlinear stability of the relative equilibria are investigated in details in a wide range of the parameters of the gravity field and the rigid body. We find that both the zonal harmonic J2 and the characteristic dimension of the rigid body have significant effects on the linear and nonlinear stability. Similar to the classical attitude stability in a central gravity field, the linear stability region is also consisted of two regions that are analogues of the Lagrange region and the DeBra-Delp region respectively. The nonlinear stability region is the subset of the linear stability region in the first quadrant that is the analogue of the Lagrange region. Our results are very useful for the studies on the motion of natural satellites in our solar system.
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