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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Arathoon, Philip
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.15035
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Table of Contents:
  • We consider the task of classifying relative equilibria for mechanical systems with rotational symmetry. We divide relative equilibria into two natural groups: a generic class which we call normal, and a non-generic abnormal class. The eigenvalues of the locked inertia tensor descend to shape-space and endow it with the geometric structure of a 3-web with the property that any normal relative equilibrium occurs as a critical point of the potential restricted to a leaf from the web. To demonstrate the utility of this web structure we show how the spherical 3-body problem gives rise to a web of Cayley cubics on the 3-sphere, and use this to fully classify the relative equilibria for the case of equal masses.