Manuele Santoprete

The Hessian of Planar Central Configurations in Pair Space: Decomposition, Morse Index and Symmetry Reduction

We give a variational derivation of the central configuration equations in pair space, where the relative position vectors between pairs of bodies serve as the primary variables. Vector Lagrange multipliers enforce the linear triangle relations required for these pair vectors to be realizable in the plane. For arbitrar...