A "barbell" in a central force field: A case study in symmetry reduction

Abstract

We present an application of a recently introduced variant of orbit space reduction for symmetric dynamical systems. This variant works with suitable localizations of the algebra of polynomial invariants of the group actions, and provides reduction to a variety that is embedded in a low-dimensional affine space, which makes efficient computations possible. As an example, we discuss the mechanical system of a "barbell" in a central force field.