1994/12/10 by Ulvi Yurtsever · 3 citations
Chemistry · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #CHAOS (operating system) #Center (category theory) #Chemistry #Classical mechanics #Computer science #General relativity #Geometry #Mathematics #Nonlinear Waves and Solitons #Physics #Quantum chaos and dynamical systems #Theoretical physics #Theory of relativity #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.52.3176
published as Phys.Rev.D52:3176-3183,1995 · 14 pages, 7 figures
arxiv created 1994/12/10 · openalex publication_date 1995/09/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The now-famous Majumdar-Papapetrou exact solution of the Einstein-Maxwell equations describes, in general, N static, maximally charged black holes balanced under mutual gravitational and electrostatic interaction. When N=2, this solution defines the two-black-hole spacetime, and the relativistic two-center problem is the problem of geodesic motion on this static background. Contopoulos and a number of other workers have recently discovered through numerial experiments that, in contrast with the Newtonian two-center problem, where the dynamics is completely integrable, relativistic null-geodesic motion on the two-black-hole spacetime exhibits chaotic behavior Here I identify the geometric sources of this chaotic dynamics by first reducing the problem to that of geodesic motion on a negatively curved (Riemannian) surface.