Existence of Really Perverse Central Configurations in the Spatial $N$-Body Problem

Abstract

We construct explicit examples of really perverse central configurations in the spatial Newtonian $N$-body problem. A central configuration is called really perverse if it satisfies the central configuration equations for two distinct mass distributions having the same total mass. While such configurations were previously known only in the planar case for large $N$, we prove the existence of spatial really perverse central configurations for $N=27,\dots,55$.