The Restricted Three-Body Problem as a Perturbed Duffing Equation

Abstract

This paper investigates the restricted circular planar three-body problem. We prove that for every negative Jacobi constant of sufficiently large magnitude, the surface of unperturbed parabolic solutions breaks to induce homoclinic tangle for all but at most finitely many mass ratios of primaries. This result is not covered by \cite{G} as the required large magnitude of the Jacobi constant is uniform across the mass ratios. Our approach consists of three main ingredients. First, by introducing new coordinate transformations, we reformulate the restricted three-body problem as a perturbed Duffing equation. Second, we adopt the method recently introduced in \cite{CW} to derive integral equations for the primary stable and unstable solutions. This enables us to effectively capture the order of the singularities involved and to further establish the existence and analytic dependence of the invariant manifolds on the mass ratio of the primaries and the Jacobi constant. Third, in evaluating the Poincaré-Melnikov integral, we take advantage of the explicit homoclinic solution of the unperturbed Duffing equation. Compared to existing works, our proof is significantly simpler and more direct. Moreover, the paper is self-contained: we do not rely on McGehee's analysis in \cite{Mc} to justify the applicability of the Poincaré-Melnikov method.