Normal form invariants around spin-orbit periodic orbits (Q5945032)

The authors consider an oblate satellite orbiting a central planet with \(T_{\text{rev}}\) the period of revolution. The satellite rotates about an internal spin axis with rotational period \(T_{\text{rot}}\). A spin-orbit resonance occurs when the ratio \(T_{\text{rev}}/T_{\text{rot}}\) is a rational number. The authors examine \(1:1\) resonances (typical of the Earth and its moon) as well as the \(3:2\) resonance which characterizes the Sun-Mercury system. The authors' approach is to reduce to a Poincaré mapping about each periodic orbit, shift the fixed point to the origin, and expand in polynomial series of the coordinates up to the third degree. Then they use a normal form transformation and changes of variables to reduce the original mapping to the form \[ \begin{aligned} r' & =r+R(r,\varphi),\\ \varphi' & =\varphi + \gamma_0 +\gamma_1 r^2+S(r,\varphi) \end{aligned} \] where \((r,\varphi)\) are polar coordinates and \(R(r,\varphi)\), \(S(r,\varphi)\) are error terms. The quantities \(\gamma_0\) and \(\gamma_1\) are invariants for the resonances, and the authors compute them for the \(1:1\) and \(3:2\) resonances. Since \(\gamma_1\neq 0\), results of Siegel and Moser can be used to prove the existence of librational invariant curves surrounding the fixed point and hence that the resonant orbits are stable.