Sundman Stability of Natural Planet Satellites

TL;DR

This paper introduces Sundman surfaces to analyze the stability of natural planet satellites within the three-body problem, comparing it with classical methods and revealing discrepancies in satellite stability assessments.

Contribution

The paper develops the concept of Sundman stability using exact Sundman inequalities and constructs stability regions, providing a new approach to satellite stability analysis.

Findings

Sundman stability regions match Golubev's method in certain parameters.

Some satellites stable by Hill or Golubev methods are unstable under Sundman stability.

Sundman surfaces' singular points are located in different coordinate planes.

Abstract

The stability of the motion of the planet satellites is considered in the model of the general three-body problem (Sun-planet-satellite). "Sundman surfaces" are constructed, by means of which the concept "Sundman stability" is formulated. The comparison of the Sundman stability with the results of Golubev's c2h method and with the Hill's classical stability in the restricted three-body problem is performed. The constructed Sundman stability regions in the plane of the parameters "energy - moment of momentum" coincide with the analogous regions obtained by Golubev's method, with the value (c2h)cr. The construction of the Sundman surfaces in the three-dimensional space of the specially selected coordinates xyR is carried out by means of the exact Sundman inequality in the general three-body problem. The determination of the singular points of surfaces, the regions of the possible motion and Sundman stability analysis are implemented. It is shown that the singular points of the Sundman surfaces in the coordinate space xyR lie in different planes. Sundman stability of all known natural satellites of planets is investigated. It is shown that a number of the natural satellites, that are stable according to Hill and also some satellites that are stable according to Golubev's method are unstable in the sense of Sundman stability.