Linear stability of the elliptic relative equilibrium with \((1+7)\)-gon central configuration in planar \(N\)-body problem (Q6043596)

The authors consider central configurations for the planar \(n\)-body problem. They are interested in particular in the \((1 + n)\)-gon elliptic relative equilibrium solutions with \(n\) unit masses at the vertices of a regular \(n\)-gon with a body of mass \(m\) at the center. Each body moves on a Kepler orbit with eccentricity \(\epsilon\) between \(0\) and \(1\). The prior work [\textit{R. Moeckel}, IMA Vol. Math Appl. 63, 291--331 (1995; Zbl 0833.70009)] establishes that for \(\epsilon = 0\), the \((1 + n)\)-gon is linearly stable for sufficiently large \(m\) and \(n \geq 7\). In this paper the question posed is whether this result holds for eccentricities \(\epsilon > 0\). A more recent result in [\textit{X. Hu} et al., Nonlinearity 33, 1016--1045 (2020; Zbl 1437.37066)] shows that for \(n \geq 8\) the result does hold, but leaves the case \(n = 7\) open. Here the authors prove that indeed the \((1+7)\)-gon elliptic relative equilibrium is linearly stable for any \(\epsilon \in (0,1)\) when the central mass \(m\) is large enough. The proof takes advantage of the rotational symmetry of the elliptic regular equilibrium and uses a symplectic reduction method.