Authors: Marta Ceccaroni James Biggs Luca Biasco
Publish Date: 2012/05/15
Volume: 114, Issue: 1-2, Pages: 1-24
Abstract
The weak stability boundary WSB is the transition region of the phase space where the change from gravitational escape to ballistic capture occurs Studies on this complicated region of chaotic motion aim to investigate its unique fuel saving properties to enlarge the frontiers of low energy transfers This “fuzzy stability” region is characterized by highly sensitive motion and any analysis of it has been carried out almost exclusively using numerical methods On the contrary this paper presents for the planar circular restricted 3body problem 1 an analytic definition of the WSB which is coherent with the known algorithmic definitions 2 a precise description of the topology of the WSB 3 analytic estimates on the “stable region” nearby the smaller primary whose boundary is by definition the WSB
Keywords: