A limit of nonplanar 5-body central configurations is nonplanar
arXiv:2308.12901 · doi:10.1007/s00205-023-01949-7
Abstract
Moeckel (1990), Moeckel and Simó (1995) proved that, while continuously changing the masses, a 946-body planar central configuration bifurcates into a spatial central configuration. We show that this kind of bifurcation does not occur with 5 bodies. Question 17 in the list Albouy & al (2012) is thus answered negatively.
17 pages, 5 figures, 2 footnotes