Natural dynamical reduction of the three-body problem (Q6155765)

Conserved quantities allow to reduce the formulation of a mechanical problem to fewer degrees of freedom, a process known as ``dynamical reduction''. In this paper the author presents a general and natural dynamical reduction of a three-body configuration, that defines a triangle, and its orientation in space. He decomposes the dynamical variables into the geometry (shape + size) and orientation of the triangle. The geometry variables are shown to describe the motion of an abstract point in a curved 3D space, subject to a potential-derived force and a magnetic-like force, with a monopole charge. The orientation variables are shown to obey a dynamic analogous to the Euler equations for a rotating rigid body. The reduction rests on a novel symmetric solution to the center of mass constraint inspired by Lagrange's solution to the cubic. The formulation of the orientation variables is novel and rests on a partially known generalization of the Euler-Lagrange equations to non-coordinate velocities. Some applications to global features, to the statistical solution, to special exact solutions, and to economized simulations are presented. It is also presented a generalization to the four-body problem.