Stability of axial orbits in galactic potentials

Abstract

We investigate the dynamics in a galactic potential with two reflection symmetries. The phase-space structure of the real system is approximated with a resonant detuned normal form constructed with the method based on the Lie transform. Attention is focused on the stability properties of the axial periodic orbits that play an important role in galactic models. Using energy and ellipticity as parameters, we find analytical expressions of bifurcations and compare them with numerical results available in the literature.Comment: 20 pages, accepted for publication on Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronom