Planar symmetric concave central configurations in Newtonian four-body problems (Q2015116)

This paper deals with the planar problem of four point masses interacting gravitationally according to Newton's laws. Let \(m_1,\dots , m_4\) be the masses and \(q_1,\dots , q_4 \in \mathbb{R}^2\) be the positions of the bodies. It is known that a configuration is central if the acceleration vector for each body is a common scalar multiple of its positions vector. This paper considers the case of the planar 4-body concave central configurations, in which one mass lies inside the triangle formed by the other three masses. The authors discuss the following inverse problem: given a concave configuration \(q=(q_1, q_2, q_3, q_4)\), find positive masses \(m_1,\dots , m_4\) which make the configuration a central configuration. By fixing the vector of positions at \(q_1=(-1,0)\), \(q_2=(1,0)\), \(q_3=(0,t)\) and \(q_4=(0,s)\), where \(t>s>0\), the authors prove that there exist two open bounded regions in the \(st\)-plane where the mass are positive and the configuration is central.