Dihedral homology and the moon (Q480903)

Let \(\mathcal{L}\) be the loop space of the \(n\)-dimensional sphere \(S^n\). There exists a right action of \(O(2)\) on \(\mathcal{L}\) called \textit{the twisted action}. The purpose of this paper is to explain that the twisted \(O(2)\)-action actually naturally arises in the study of a Hamiltonian system whose puzzling dynamics was historically one of the main motivations to investigate closed geodesics, namely the restricted problem of three bodies. An important tool in this study is the computation of the equivariant homology of the loop space of a sphere from [\textit{G. M. Lodder}, Proc. Lond. Math. Soc. (3) 60, No. 1, 201--224 (1990; Zbl 0691.55006)].