Search arXiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · math/0405014

Fitting Hyperbolic Pants to a Three-Body Problem

Richard Montgomery
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Consider the three-body problem with an attractive $1/r^2$ potential. Modulo symmetries, the dynamics of the bounded zero-angular momentum solutions is equivalent to a geodesic flow on the thrice-punctured sphere, or ``pair of pants''. The sphere is the shape sphere. The punctures are the binary collisions. The metric generating the geodesics is the Jacobi-Maupertuis metric. The metric is complete, has infinite area, and its ends, the neighborhoods of the punctures, are asymptotically cylindrical. Our main result is that when the three masses are equal then the metric has negative curvature everywhere except at two points (the Lagrange points). A corollary of this negativity is the uniqueness of the $1/r^2$ figure eight, a complete symbolic dynamics for encoding the collision-free solutions, and the fact that collision solutions are dense within the bound solutions.

Explore related subjects

math.DS

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Richard Montgomery. 2004-05-01. Fitting Hyperbolic Pants to a Three-Body Problem. https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0405014

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Pivoting technique for the circle homeomorphism group

We adapt Gou{ë}zel's pivoting technique to the circle homeomorphism group. As an application, we give different proofs of Gilabert Vio's probabilistic Tits alternative and Malicet's exponential synchronization.

math.DS↗
arXiv2026

Asymmetry of a class of Mellin transforms

We introduce the quantity $μ_η$, defined for every complex $s$ in the critical strip, as a transformation of the Mellin transform associated to the functions $η$. We establish a sufficient condition on $η$ under which $μ_η(s)$ and $μ_η(1-s)$ cannot both vanish outside the critical line. An application is given to the case in which $η$ is the fractional part function, and the zeros of $μ_η$ coincide with the zeros of the Riemann zeta function.

math.DS↗
arXiv2026

Infinite Set of Resonances in the Linear Damped Oscillator Subject to Harmonic Forcing with Non-standard Frequency Modulation

It is shown that harmonic signals incorporating a type of weak non-standard frequency modulation (wNSFM) have interesting spectral properties, namely, time-dependent bandwidths that become increasingly broader with increasing time. As such, they represent a class of signals with frequency-time coupling in their spectra. Specifically, the weakly damped oscillator exhibits always two transient resonance captures involving two distinct harmonics possessing relatively high amplitudes over finite time intervals, while the overall response decays as $~t^{-1/2}$ as $t\rightarrow\infty$. Considering the undamped oscillator, it possesses two types of resonances, referred to as simple and non-simple resonances. Simple resonances correspond to finite-amplitude steady-state responses caused by two sustained resonance captures, in the form of two distinct modulated quasi-periodic responses, which, however are "activated" at different time instances. The necessary and sufficient conditions for non-simple resonances are given in the form of a theorem which predicts the existence of resonant harmonics and specifies the special phase conditions that the resonant harmonics must satisfy for constructive interference; the resulting undamped non-simple resonance grows unboundedly as $~t^{-1/2}$ as $t\rightarrow\infty$, in contrast to the classical resonance growth of the linear resonator with unmodulated harmonic excitation whose response grows as $~t$ as $t\rightarrow\infty$. These resonant responses are persistent to changes in the parameters of the wNSFM. Our results reveal interesting infinite sets of resonances in linear SDOF resonators under frequency-modulated excitations.

math.DS↗