One family of 13315 stable periodic orbits of non-hierarchical unequal-mass triple systems

Abstract

The three-body problem has been studied for more than three centuries [1,2], and has received much attention in recent years [3-5]. It shows complex dynamical phenomena due to the mutual gravitational interaction of the three bodies. Triple systems are common in astronomy, but all observed periodic triple systems are hierarchical up till now [6-8]. It is traditionally believed that bound non-hierarchical triple systems are almost unstable and disintegrate into a stable binary system and a single star [5], and thus stable periodic orbits of non-hierarchical triple systems are rather scarce. Here we report one family of 13315 stable periodic orbits of the non-hierarchical triple system with unequal mass. Compared with the narrow mass region (only 10E-5) of the stable figure-eight solution [9], our newly-found stable periodic orbits can have fairly large mass region. It is found that many of these newly-found stable periodic orbits have the mass ratios close to those of the hierarchical triple systems that have been measured by the astronomical observation. It implies that these stable periodic orbits of the non-hierarchical triple system with distinctly unequal masses can be quite possibly observed in practice. Our investigation also suggests that there should exist an infinite number of stable periodic orbits of non-hierarchical triple systems with distinctly unequal masses. Obviously, these stable periodic orbits of the non-hierarchical unequal-mass triple system have broad impact for the astrophysical scenario: they could inspire the theoretical and observational study of the non-hierarchical triple system, the formation of triple stars [6], the gravitational waves pattern [10] and the gravitational waves observation [11] of the non-hierarchical triple system.