Unifying the Hyperbolic and Spherical 2-Body Problem with Biquaternions

Abstract

The 2-body problem on the sphere and hyperbolic space are both real forms of holomorphic Hamiltonian systems defined on the complex sphere. This admits a natural description in terms of biquaternions and allows us to address questions concerning the hyperbolic system by complexifying it and treating it as the complexification of a spherical system. In this way, results for the 2-body problem on the sphere are readily translated to the hyperbolic case. For instance, we implement this idea to completely classify the relative equilibria for the 2-body problem on hyperbolic 3-space for a strictly attractive potential.