The N-Body Problem

Anas khan
November 2020

Introduction
Let’s begin by asking ourselves what is the N-Body Problem?

The classical N-Body problem is the problem of predicting the motion of a

group of celestial objects interacting with each other gravitationally. The desire
of solving this problem emerged from the curiosity to understand the motion
of the Sun,moon,planets and other celestial objects.It’s simply the problem of
how to describe the motion of a number, n, different objects interacting with
each other gravitationally.An example of this would be our solar system. If
we wanted to map out the movement of the moon with respect to an initially
fixed sun we would need to take into account the relative positions of the sun,
the moon, and the earth and the gravitational forces they cause on each other.
Because we are taking into account 3 objects, this would be called a 3-body
problem.

The problem can be informally stated as follows:

”Given the quasi-steady orbital properties of a group of celestial bod-

ies, predict their interactive forces and their true trajectory at all
future times.”

Knowing three orbital positions of a planet’s orbit,Newton was able to pro-

duce an equation by straightforward analytical geometry, to predict a planet’s
motion. However, Newton and the others soon realized that the equations of
motion they gave did not predict the orbital motion of some planets correctly.We
have an analytical solution to the 2-body problem. We have solutions to several
restricted 3-body problems, but no general analytic solution. The search for
analytical solutions to the n-body problem has led to many modern mathemat-
ical advances. It has been worked on by some of the best minds in the field like
Euler, Newton, and Gauss, and is still an active research topic.

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General formulation of the N-body problem
The Newtonian System can be handled by the central force problems however
it has limitations.It does not take into account that a particle also attracts its
source of attraction.Here follows a definition of a more general model:
Consider N particles in space with masses mi and location vectors ri for
i=0,1,2,3... N respectively.They attract one other with a force which can be
given by Newton’s Second Law of Motion.This system under gravitational forces
satisfies the equations
∞
X Gmj mk rˆjk
mk r¨k =
(rjk )2
j=0,j6=k

for k =0,1,2,....n, where G is the gravitational constant, rjk =rj − rk is the

relative location vector, rjK is its length and r̂ is its direction vector.
This is known as the N-body problem. Since each vector has 3 components this
is a system of 6N equations.The N-body problem however doesn’t have any spe-
cific center. For this we turn to a different method to define a center to locate
at the origin.

Theorem:
The movement of the center of mass is linear.

The linear movement of the center of mass can be removed from the system
and the center of mass can be fixed at the origin of the coordinate system.

Existence and Singularities

the N-body problem doesn’t necessarily have a singularity at the origin like
the central force problem. Since the terms of the force function defined under
general formulation each depend on the mutual distances between the particles,
they have singularities when rij = 0. The simplest kind of singularity is a colli-
sion, which can be defined as:
A collision occurs at t∗ when every position vector ri converges to a value as
t → t∗ and some distinct ri and rj converge to the same value. A total collapse
occurs when all the particles collide at the same time.
To show the existence of a solution we wish to exclude collisions. Consider the
smallest of the mutual distances
rmin = min(r12 ,r13 ,..., r(n−1),n )
and let M be the sum of all the masses as before and m0 the smallest of all
the masses. Bounds for the equations of motion can then be obtained from the
force equation under generalised formulation and the conservation of the total
energy:

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