The Parametric Instability of Motion at Resonance as a Source of Chaotic Behaviour at the Restricted Three body Problem

Abstract

The planetary restricted three-body problem (RTBP) is considered. The primary mass M is much more than another masses mj, i=1..N, which revolve around M. The massless probe particle m moves on elliptic orbit, is perturbed by mj. It is well known, that equations of motion of restricted 3-body problem in rotating rectangular frame may be reduced to the second order differential equation with periodic coefficients (Hill equation). It gives the ability to estimate width and position of the unstable zones. Moreover, the dependence of the position of instable zones from orbital eccentricity of the probe particle is derived. It is evident, that overlapping of instability zones in strongly perturbed system can be a source of the chaotic behaviour. The main result of this work may be formulated in such form: There are not exist stable orbits with e=0 and i=0 in neighborhood of mean motion resonances (2n-1)/(2n+1). Positions and width of unstable zones depends from eccentricity. At high order of resonance, instable zones are overlapped. This fact can explain chaotic nature of according orbits.