Revolving scheme for solving a cascade of Abel equations in dynamics of planar satellite rotation

TL;DR

This paper analytically explores the dynamics of planar satellite rotation, revealing potential for sudden jumps and chaos in solutions of Abel equations, and introduces a revolving scheme to solve a cascade of these equations.

Contribution

It presents a novel revolving scheme for solving a cascade of Abel equations in satellite rotation dynamics, extending previous work and analyzing solution behaviors including chaos and gradient catastrophes.

Findings

Potential for sudden jumps in satellite rotation solutions.

Existence of chaotic regimes and gradient catastrophes.

Asymptotic solutions showing quasi-periodic behavior.

Abstract

The main objective for this research was the analytical exploration of the dynamics of planar satellite rotation during the motion of an elliptical orbit around a planet. First, we revisit the results of J. Wisdom et al. (1984), in which, by the elegant change of variables (considering the true anomaly f as the independent variable), the governing equation of satellite rotation takes the form of an Abel ODE of the second kind, a sort of generalization of the Riccati ODE. We note that due to the special character of solutions of a Riccati-type ODE, there exists the possibility of sudden jumping in the magnitude of the solution at some moment of time. In the physical sense, this jumping of the Riccati-type solutions of the governing ODE could be associated with the effect of sudden acceleration/deceleration in the satellite rotation around the chosen principle axis at a definite moment of parametric time. This means that there exists not only a chaotic satellite rotation regime (as per the results of J. Wisdom et al. (1984)), but a kind of gradient catastrophe (Arnold 1992) could occur during the satellite rotation process. We especially note that if a gradient catastrophe could occur, this does not mean that it must occur: such a possibility depends on the initial conditions. In addition, we obtained asymptotical solutions that manifest a quasi-periodic character even with the strong simplifying assumptions e ~ 0, p = 1, which reduce the governing equation of J. Wisdom et al. (1984) to a kind of Beletskii equation.