Variational Construction of Homoclinic and Heteroclinic Orbits in the Planar Sitnikov Problem

Abstract

The Sitnikov problem is a special case of the three-body problem. The system is known to be chaotic and has been studied by symbolic dynamics (J. Moser, Stable and random motions in dynamical systems, Princeton University Press, 1973). We study the limiting case of the Sitnikov problem as the eccentricity of the massive particles tends to 1. By variational method, we show the existence of infinitely many homoclinic and heteroclinic solutions in the planar Sitnikov problem. In a previous work, for certain periodic symbolic sequences, the second author showed the existence of periodic solutions realizing them. In this paper, we show the existence of homoclinic and heteroclinic solutions between some of these periodic orbits which realize certain non-periodic symbolic sequences.