The Octahedral Collision-Based Periodic Orbit in the Three-Dimensional Six-Body Problem

Abstract

We construct a highly-symmetric periodic orbit of six bodies in three dimensions. In this orbit, binary collisions occur at the origin in a regular periodic fashion, rotating between pairs of bodies located on the coordinate axes. Regularization of the collisions in the orbit is achieved by an extension of the Levi-Civita method. Initial conditions for the orbit are found numerically. In contrast to an earlier periodic collision-based orbit in three dimensions, this orbit is shown to be unstable.