The effect of small perturbations in the Coriolis and centrifugal forces on the existence of libration points in the restricted four‐body problem with variable mass

Abstract

This paper shows the effect of small perturbations in the Coriolis and centrifugal forces in the restricted four‐body problem (R4BP) with variable mass. The existence, location, and stability of the libration points are investigated numerically and graphically under these perturbations. In the present problem, a fourth body with infinitesimal mass is moving under the Newtonian gravitational attraction of three primaries which are moving in a circular orbit around their common center of mass fixed at the origin of the coordinate system. Moreover, according to the solution of Lagrange, the primaries are fixed at the vertices of an equilateral triangle. The fourth body does not affect the motion of three primaries. Furthermore, the fourth body's mass varies according to Jeans' law. The equations of motion of the test particle, i.e., fourth body moving under the gravitational influence of the primaries, are derived. Throughout the paper, we consider the case where the primary body placed along the x‐axis is dominant while the other two small primaries are equal. Further, it is shown that there exist either 8 or 10 libration points out of which 2 or 4 are collinear with the dominating primary and the rest are non‐collinear for fixed values of the parameters. The linear stability of all the libration points under consideration is investigated, and these libration points are found to be unstable. The allowed regions of motion are determined by using the zero‐velocity surface, and the positions of the libration points on the orbital plane are presented. Moreover, by using the Newton–Raphson iterative scheme, we unveiled the effects of the Coriolis and centrifugal forces on the topology of the basins of convergence associated with the libration points.