Lambert's theorem: geometry or dynamics?

DOI10.1007/S10569-019-9916-2MaRDI QIDQ2005645zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Alain Albouy

Publication date 8 October 2020

Published in Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.03049

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

History of mathematics in the 18th century (01A50) History of mathematics in the 19th century (01A55) Two-body problems (70F05) History of mechanics of particles and systems (70-03) Celestial mechanics (70F15)

Abstract: Lambert's theorem (1761) on the elapsed time along a Keplerian arc drew the attention of several prestigious mathematicians. In particular, they tried to give simple and transparent proofs of it (see our timeline S 9). We give two new proofs. The first one (S 4) goes along the lines of Hamilton's variational proof in his famous paper of 1834, but we shorten his computation in such a way that the hypothesis is now used without redundancy. The second (S 6) is among the few which are close to Lambert's geometrical proof. It starts with the new remark that two Keplerian arcs related by the hypothesis of Lambert's theorem correspond to each other through an affine map. We also show (S 7) that despite the singularities due to the occurrence of collisions, the classes of arcs related by Lambert's theorem all have the same topology. We give (S 8) some simple related results about conic sections and affine transformations.

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Cites work

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• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3183959 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3041187 (Why is no real title available?)
• A Minimizing Property of Keplerian Orbits
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Cited in

(6)

• On the Lambert problem with drag
• How many Keplerian arcs are there between two points of spacetime?
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 2070442 (Why is no real title available?)
• Probabilistic Lambert problem: connections with optimal mass transport, Schrödinger bridge, and reaction-diffusion PDEs
• Revisiting Kepler: new symmetries of an old problem
• Lambert's theorem and projective dynamics

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