Spatial relative equilibria and periodic solutions of the Coulomb $(n+1)$-body problem

Abstract

We study a classical model for the atom that considers the movement of $n$ charged particles of charge $-1$ (electrons) interacting with a fixed nucleus of charge $\mu >0$. We show that two global branches of spatial relative equilibria bifurcate from the $n$-polygonal relative equilibrium for each critical values $\mu =s_k$ for $k\in [2,...,n/2]$. In these solutions, the $n$ charges form $n/h$-groups of regular $h$-polygons in space, where $h$ is the greatest common divisor of $k$ and $n$. Furthermore, each spatial relative equilibrium has a global branch of relative periodic solutions for each normal frequency satisfying some nonresonant condition. We obtain computer-assisted proofs of the existence of several spatial relative equilibria on global branches away from the $n$-polygonal relative equilibrium. Moreover, the nonresonant condition of the normal frequencies for some spatial relative equilibria is verified rigorously using computer-assisted proofs.