Homoclinic orbits in the Euler problem of two fixed centers (Q1663998)

The Euler problem with two fixed centers describes the motion of a point-mass (referred to as the satellite) under the influence of a Newtonian potential with two fixed attracting points (referred to as Earth and Moon). Let \(\mu \in (0,1)\) denote the mass ratio of the two massive bodies and locate the Earth and Moon at \(E=(-1 / 2,0)\) and \(M=(1 / 2,0)\), respectively. The Hamiltonian \(H: T^{*}\left(\mathbb{R}^{2} \backslash\{E, M\}\right) \cong\left(\mathbb{R}^{2} \backslash\{E, M\}\right) \times \mathbb{R}^{2} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}\) describing such system is given by \[ H(q, p)=\frac{1}{2}|p|^{2}-\frac{1-\mu}{|q-E|}-\frac{\mu}{|q-M|} \ . \] Without loss of generality, the author assumes that \(\mu \leq 1 / 2\), i.e. the gravitational influence of Earth is stronger than that of the Moon. The Hamiltonian has a unique critical point \(L=(\ell, 0,0,0)\), where \(\ell \in(-1 / 2,1 / 2)\), of Morse index \(1\), corresponding to the saddle point of the potential. Given an energy level \(H=c\), its Hill's region is defined to be \[ \mathcal{K}_{c}:=\pi\left(H^{-1}(c)\right) \subset \mathbb{R}^{2} \backslash\{E, M\} \ , \] where \(\pi:\left(\mathbb{R}^{2} \backslash\{E, M\}\right) \times \mathbb{R}^{2} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^{2} \backslash\{E, M\}\) is the projection onto the configuration space \(\mathbb{R}^{2} \backslash\{E, M\}\). The author considers only the case of negative energies so that Hill's regions are bounded and the satellite is confined to a bounded region in the configuration space. Let \(c_{J}=H(L)=-1-2 \sqrt{\mu(1-\mu)}\) be the critical energy level such that: (i) for \(c < c_{J}\), the Hill's region consists of two connected components, one being a neighborhood of the Earth and the other a neighborhood of the Moon; and (ii) for \(c>c_{J}\), the two components become connected and the satellite can move from the Earth to the Moon and vice-versa. There are two other distinguished energy levels \(c_{e}\) and \(c_{h}\) (with the property that \(c_{J} < c_{e} < c_{h}\leq 0\)) at which the Liouville foliation changes. The author considers the following three types of unstable periodic orbits: a) the double-collision orbit \(\gamma^{\text {dou }}\), which exists for \(c>c_{J}\), is stable up to \(c=c_{e}\), and unstable for \(c>c_{e}\); b) the hyperbolic orbit \(\gamma^{\text{hyp}}\), which exists for \(c \in\left(c_J, c_{h}\right)\) and is always unstable; c) the exterior collision orbit near the Moon \(\gamma_{M}^{\text {ext }}\), which exists for all negative energies and it is unstable if \(c \in\left(c_{h}, 0\right)\) and \(\mu \neq 1 / 2\). The main result in this paper concerns the behavior of homoclinic orbits to each of these unstable periodic orbits: (i) For each \(c \in\left(c_{J}, c_{h}\right)\), \(\gamma^{\text{hyp}}\) admits homoclinics which collide with either the Earth or Moon. Moreover, all non-collision homoclinic orbits to \(\gamma^{\text {hyp }}\) rotate around one of the primaries precisely once.\newline (ii) For \(c \in\left(c_{e}, 0\right)\), all homoclinic orbits to \(\gamma^{\text {dou }}\) rotate around \(\gamma^{\text {dou }}\). Moreover, no such homoclinics admit collisions. (iii) For \(c \in\left(c_{h}, 0\right)\) and \(\mu \neq 1 / 2\), \(\gamma_{M}^{\text {ext }}\) admits homoclinics which collide with the Earth. No such homoclinics collide with the Moon. Furthermore, any non-collision homoclinic rotates around the Earth precisely once.