Paper detail

Relative equilibria of four identical satellites

We consider the Newtonian 5-body problem in the plane, where 4 bodies have the same mass m, which is small compared to the mass M of the remaining body. We consider the (normalized) relative equilibria in this system, and follow them to the limit when m/M -> 0. In some cases two small bodies will coalesce at the limit. We call the other equilibria the relative equilibria of four separate identical satellites. We prove rigorously that there are only three such equilibria, all already known after the numerical researches in [SaY]. Our main contribution is to prove that any equilibrium configuration possesses a symmetry, a statement indicated in [CLO2] as the missing key to proving that there is no other equilibrium.