Symbolic dynamics in a binary asteroid system (Q2213865)

This work highlights numerically the existence of topological horseshoes in a three-body system (a binary asteroid system interacting with a planet external to the asteroid orbits). The problem obeys the Newtonian dynamics and cannot be solved analytically; the results are shown numerically without a rigorous proof. First the physical setup is described by defining the Hamiltonian of the three-body system in a plane and some useful parametrizations are introduced. In Section 2 the authors perform the Poincaré mapping of the system. This is nicely visualized in the phase space diagrams before and after the mapping. Additionally, fixed points are drawn in the phase space for both hyperbolic and elliptic points. Finally, in Section 3 the topological horseshoes are derived from covering relations and their existence proven numerically -- and graphically. The appendix gives details on the numerical analysis.