No label defined (Q4400630)

The main purpose of these seminar notes is to give a sketch of the proof of a theorem by \textit{Z. Xia} [The non-collision singularities of the 5-body problem. The geometry of Hamiltonian systems, Proc. Workshop, Berkeley/CA (USA) 1989, Math. Sci. Res. Inst. Publ. 22, 519-527 (1991; Zbl 0733.70006)] concerning the existence of a special class of near collision orbits in the five-body problem, with four of the bodies going to infinity in a finite time. Section 2 contains a fairly extensive account of the way one approaches the study of collisions in the \(N\)-body problem. An important tool is the symmetry of homothetic transformations by which the Hamiltonian vector field is quotiented out. Xia's construction is in part inspired by work by \textit{J. N. Mather} and \textit{R. McGehee} [Dyn. Syst., Theor. Appl., Battelle Seattle 1974 Renc., Lect. Notes Phys. 38, 573-597 (1975; Zbl 0331.70005)] on the collinear four-body problem. The main steps in their proof of existence of orbits which become unbounded in a finite time are summarized in Section 1. This is then compared to the situation considered by Xia which consists of the following special configuration: two pairs of bodies with equal mass each form an isosceles triangle with a ``messenger body'' which oscillates between the pairs along a symmetry axis of the system at an ever increasing speed. It is then a matter of understanding orbits which are near triple and double collision at the same time. Section 3 of the paper is about different aspects of triple collisions. The final section sketches many subtle features of the proof of Xia's theorem. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0910.00034].