Dynamics of the the dihedral four-body problem

Abstract

Consider four point particles with equal masses in the euclidean space, subject to the following symmetry constraint: at each instant they are symmetric with respect to the dihedral group $D_2$, that is the group generated by two rotations of angle $\pi$ around two orthogonal axes. Under a homogeneous potential of degree $-\alpha$ for $0<\alpha <2$, this is a subproblem of the four-body problem, in which all orbits have zero angular momentum and the configuration space is three-dimensional. In this paper we study the flow in McGehee coordinates on the collision manifold, and discuss the qualitative behavior of orbits which reach or come close to a total collision.

46 pages, 5 figures