Heteroclinic connections between periodic orbits and resonance transitions in celestial mechanics

In this paper we apply dynamical systems techniques to the problem of heteroclinic connections and resonance transitions in the planar circular restricted three-body problem. These related phenomena have been of concern for some time in topics such as the capture of comets and asteroids and with the design of trajectories for space missions such as the Genesis Discovery Mission. The main new technical result in this paper is the numerical demonstration of the existence of a heteroclinic connection between pairs of periodic orbits: one around the libration point L1 and the other around L2, with the two periodic orbits having the same energy. This result is applied to the resonance transition problem and to the explicit numerical construction of interesting orbits with prescribed itineraries. The point of view developed in this paper is that the invariant manifold structures associated to L1 and L2 as well as the aforementioned heteroclinic connection are fundamental tools that can aid in understanding dynamical channels throughout the solar system as well as transport between the "interior" and "exterior" Hill's regions and other resonant phenomena

Non-integrability of the problem of a rigid satellite in gravitational and magnetic fields

In this paper we analyse the integrability of a dynamical system describing the rotational motion of a rigid satellite under the influence of gravitational and magnetic fields. In our investigations we apply an extension of the Ziglin theory developed by Morales-Ruiz and Ramis. We prove that for a symmetric satellite the system does not admit an additional real meromorphic first integral except for one case when the value of the induced magnetic moment along the symmetry axis is related to the principal moments of inertia in a special way.Comment: 39 pages, 4 figures, missing bibliography was adde

Chaos in an Exact Relativistic 3-body Self-Gravitating System

We consider the problem of three body motion for a relativistic one-dimensional self-gravitating system. After describing the canonical decomposition of the action, we find an exact expression for the 3-body Hamiltonian, implicitly determined in terms of the four coordinate and momentum degrees of freedom in the system. Non-relativistically these degrees of freedom can be rewritten in terms of a single particle moving in a two-dimensional hexagonal well. We find the exact relativistic generalization of this potential, along with its post-Newtonian approximation. We then specialize to the equal mass case and numerically solve the equations of motion that follow from the Hamiltonian. Working in hexagonal-well coordinates, we obtaining orbits in both the hexagonal and 3-body representations of the system, and plot the Poincare sections as a function of the relativistic energy parameter $\eta$. We find two broad categories of periodic and quasi-periodic motions that we refer to as the annulus and pretzel patterns, as well as a set of chaotic motions that appear in the region of phase-space between these two types. Despite the high degree of non-linearity in the relativistic system, we find that the the global structure of its phase space remains qualitatively the same as its non-relativisitic counterpart for all values of $\eta$ that we could study. However the relativistic system has a weaker symmetry and so its Poincare section develops an asymmetric distortion that increases with increasing $\eta$. For the post-Newtonian system we find that it experiences a KAM breakdown for $\eta \simeq 0.26$: above which the near integrable regions degenerate into chaos.Comment: latex, 65 pages, 36 figures, high-resolution figures available upon reques

Lie series for celestial mechanics, accelerators, satellite stabilization and optimization

Lie series applications to celestial mechanics, accelerators, satellite orbits, and optimizatio

Active Learning in Physics, Astronomy and Engineering with NASA’s General Mission Analysis Tool

Astrodynamics is the study of the motion of artificial satellites and spacecraft, subject to both natural and artificially induced forces. It combines celestial mechanics, attitude dynamics and aspects of positional astronomy to describe spacecraft motion and enable the planning and analysis of missions. It is of significant interdisciplinary interest with relevance to physics, astronomy and spaceflight engineering, but can be challenging to deliver in an effective, engaging manner because of the often abstract nature of some concepts, the four-dimensional nature of the problems, and the computation required to explore realistic astrodynamics behaviour. The University of Leicester has adopted NASA’s General Mission Analysis Tool as a core resource to support active learning in this subject for students at Level 6 (BSc) and Level 7 (MSc). This paper describes our approach to the implementation of GMAT as an essential element of teaching and learning in the subject

Understanding complex dynamics by means of an associated Riemann surface

We provide an example of how the complex dynamics of a recently introduced model can be understood via a detailed analysis of its associated Riemann surface. Thanks to this geometric description an explicit formula for the period of the orbits can be derived, which is shown to depend on the initial data and the continued fraction expansion of a simple ratio of the coupling constants of the problem. For rational values of this ratio and generic values of the initial data, all orbits are periodic and the system is isochronous. For irrational values of the ratio, there exist periodic and quasi-periodic orbits for different initial data. Moreover, the dependence of the period on the initial data shows a rich behavior and initial data can always be found such the period is arbitrarily high.Comment: 25 pages, 14 figures, typed in AMS-LaTe

Symbolic dynamics for the NN-centre problem at negative energies

We consider the planar $N$-centre problem, with homogeneous potentials of degree -\a<0, \a \in [1,2). We prove the existence of infinitely many collisions-free periodic solutions with negative and small energy, for any distribution of the centres inside a compact set. The proof is based upon topological, variational and geometric arguments. The existence result allows to characterize the associated dynamical system with a symbolic dynamics, where the symbols are the partitions of the $N$ centres in two non-empty sets