Symmetry reduction of the 3-body problem in \(\mathbb{R}^4\) (Q2220262)

The authors consider the 3-body problem \[ m_i\ddot{r_i} = \nabla_{r_i}V,\quad i = 1,2,3, \] with a potential \(V\) that depends only on the distances \(\|r_i-r_j\|\). This \(24\)-dimensional dynamical system is reduced to a Hamiltonian system with six degrees of freedom by using the translation and rotation symmetry and the fact that there are two cyclic angles. The full symplectic symmetry reduction is performed by restricting to the invariant set \(\mathcal{I}\) where the additional four components of the angular momentum vanish. It is shown that the fully reduced Hamiltonian \(H\) can be obtained by restricting the partially reduced Hamiltonian to the invariant set \(\mathcal{I}\). In contrast to the 3-body problem in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) the Hamiltonian is not polynomial in the momenta \(p_i\) but square roots occur. Moreover, \(H\) depends on the angular momenta \(\mu_1 > \mu_2 > 0\). Relative equilibria of \(H\) with vanishing momenta \(p_i\) can be found as critical points of an effective potential \(V_{\text{eff}}\). In the case of the classical Newton potential \[ V = \sum\limits_{1\leq i<j\leq 3}\dfrac{m_i m_j}{\|r_i-r_j\|} \] and under the assumption that two of the masses are equal an isosceles triangle configuration is a relative equilibrium. An explicit calculation with the Hessian shows that for \(\mu_2\) small enough this relative equilibrium is a minimum of \(H\) and therefore Lyapunov stable. A similar result is obtained for the case of unequal masses by applying a series expansion around \(\mu_2=0\) which then yields series expansions for three families of relative equilibria that are also Lyapunov stable for sufficiently small \(\mu_2>0\). In particular this shows that there exist open balls in phase space which do not contain initial conditions leading to unbounded trajectories.