Inverse problem of central configurations and singular curve in the collinear 4-body problem

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the inverse problem of central configurations of n-body problem. For a given \({q=(q_1, q_2, \ldots, q_n)\in ({\bf R}^d)^n}\), let S(q) be the admissible set of masses denoted \({ S(q)=\{ m=(m_1,m_2, \ldots, m_n)| m_i \in {\bf R}^+, q}\) is a central configuration for m}. For a given \({m\in S(q)}\), let S m (q) be the permutational admissible set about m = (m 1, m 2, . . . , m n ) denoted $$S_m(q)=\{m^\prime | m^\prime\in S(q),m^\prime \not=m \, {\rm and} \, m^\prime\,{\rm is\, a\, permutation\, of }\, m \}.$$ The main discovery in this paper is the existence of a singular curve \({\bar{\Gamma}_{31}}\) on which S m (q) is a nonempty set for some m in the collinear four-body problem. \({\bar{\Gamma}_{31}}\) is explicitly constructed by a polynomial in two variables. We proved: (1) If \({m\in S(q)}\), then either # S m (q) = 0 or # S m (q) = 1. (2) #S m (q) = 1 only in the following cases: (i) If s = t, then S m (q) = {(m 4, m 3, m 2, m 1)}. (ii) If \({(s,t)\in \bar{\Gamma}_{31}\setminus \{(\bar{s},\bar{s})\}}\), then either S m (q) = {(m 2, m 4, m 1, m 3)} or S m (q) = {(m 3, m 1, m 4, m 2)}.