Effects of zonal harmonics and a circular cluster of material points on the stability of triangular equilibrium points in the R3BP

Abstract

We have studied a modified version of the classical restricted three-body problem (CR3BP) where both primaries are considered as oblate spheroids and are surrounded by a homogeneous circular planar cluster of material points centered at the mass center of the system. In this dynamical model we have examined the effects of oblateness of both primaries up to zonal harmonic J 4; together with gravitational potential from the circular cluster of material points on the existence and linear stability of the triangular equilibrium points. It is found that, the triangular points are stable for 0<μ<μ c and unstable for $\mu_{c} \le \mu \le \frac{1}{2}$ , where μ c is the critical mass ratio affected by the oblateness up to J 4 of the primaries and potential from the circular cluster of material points. The coefficient J 4 has stabilizing tendency, while J 2 and the potential from the circular cluster of material points have destabilizing tendency. A practical application of this model could be the study of the motion of a dust particle near oblate bodies surrounded by a circular cluster of material points.