Pair space in classical mechanics, I: The three-body problem

Abstract

I introduce an extended configuration space for classical mechanical systems, called pair-space, which is spanned by the relative positions of all the pairs of bodies. To overcome the non-independence of this basis, one adds to the Lagrangian a term containing auxiliary variables. As a proof of concept, I apply this representation to the three-body problem with a generalized potential that depends on the distance $r$ between the bodies as $r^{-n}$. I obtain the equilateral and collinear solutions (corresponding to the Lagrange and Euler solutions if $n=1$) in a particularly simple way. In the collinear solution, this representation leads to several new bounds on the relative distances of the bodies.