Chaos in a relativistic 3-body self-gravitating system.
We consider the 3-body problem in relativistic lineal [i.e., (1+1)-dimensional] gravity and obtain an exact expression for its Hamiltonian and equations of motion. While general-relativistic effects yield more tightly bound orbits of higher frequency compared to their nonrelativistic counterparts, as energy increases we find in the equal-mass case no evidence for either global chaos or a breakdown from regular to chaotic motion, despite the high degree of nonlinearity in the system. We find numerical evidence for mild chaos and a countably infinite class of nonchaotic orbits, yielding a fractal structure in the outer regions of the Poincaré plot.
Burnell
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F
Department of Physics, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada.
Mann
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RB
Ohta
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