A theory of integration for the extended Delaunay method

Abstract

In this paper a method for the integration of the equations of the extended Delaunay method is proposed. It is based on the equations of the characteristic curves associated with the partial differential equation of Delaunay-Poincare. The use of the method of characteristics changes the partial differential equation for higher order approximations into a system of ordinary differential equations. The independent variable of the equations of the characteristics is used instead of the angular variables of the Jacobian methods and the averaging principle of Hori is applied to solve the equations for higher orders. It is well known that Jacobian methods applied to resonant problems generally lead to the singularity of Poincare. In the ideal resonance problem, this singularity appears when higher order approximations of the librational motion are considered. The singularity of Poincare is non-essential and is caused by the choice of the critical arguments as integration variables. The use of the independent variable of the equation of the characteristics in the place of the critical angles eliminates the singularity of Poincare.