Linear instability of relative equilibria for n-body problems in the plane

DOI10.1016/J.JDE.2014.05.017zbMATH Open1291.70028arXiv1310.8318OpenAlexW1991853296MaRDI QIDQ2250573FDOQ2250573

Authors: Vivina Barutello, Riccardo D. Jadanza, Alessandro Portaluri 

Publication date: 7 July 2014

Published in: Journal of Differential Equations (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: Following Smale, we study simple symmetric mechanical systems of $n$ point particles in the plane. In particular, we address the question of the linear and spectral stability properties of relative equilibria, which are special solutions of the equations of motion. Our main result is a sufficient condition to detect spectral (hence linear) instability. Namely, we prove that if the Morse index of an equilibrium point with even nullity is odd, then the associated relative equilibrium is spectrally unstable. The proof is based on some refined formulae for computing the spectral flow. As a notable application of our theorem, we examine two important classes of singular potentials: the $alpha$-homogeneous one, with $alphain(0,2)$, which includes the gravitational case, and the logarithmic one. We also establish, for the $alpha$-homogeneous potential, an inequality which is useful to test the spectral instability of the associated relative equilibrium.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1310.8318

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zbMATH Keywords

relative equilibrialinear instabilitylogarithmic potentialspectral flow\(n\)-body problempartial signatures\(\alpha\)-homogeneous potential

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Periodic solutions to ordinary differential equations (34C25) Lagrangian submanifolds; Maslov index (53D12) Abstract critical point theory (Morse theory, Lyusternik-Shnirel'man theory, etc.) in infinite-dimensional spaces (58E05) (n)-body problems (70F10)

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Cited In (21)

• Planar \(N\)-body central configurations with a homogeneous potential
• Linear stability of elliptic relative equilibria of restricted four-body problem
• Bifurcations of balanced configurations for the Newtonian \(n\)-body problem in \(\mathbb{R}^4\)
• Linear stability of relative equilibria with a dominant mass
• Linear instability for periodic orbits of non-autonomous Lagrangian systems
• Stability of the planar equilibrium solutions of a restricted \(1+N\) body problem
• Linear stability of the criss-cross orbit in the equal-mass three-body problem
• Bifurcations of balanced configurations for the Newtonian \(n\)-body problem in \(\mathbb{R}^4\)
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• An index theory for asymptotic motions under singular potentials
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• Morse theory and relative equilibria in the planar \(n\)-vortex problem
• Linear instability of periodic orbits of free period Lagrangian systems
• On the stability of periodic \(N\)-body motions with the symmetry of platonic polyhedra
• Linear stability of the Lagrangian triangle solutions for quasihomogeneous potentials
• Functional determinants for the second variation

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