Radical Axis and Central Line
Except for the two special cases of a pencil of concentric circles and a pencil of coincident lines, any two circles within a pencil have the same radical axis, and all circles in the pencil have collinear centers. Any three or more circles from the same family are called coaxal circles or coaxial circles.
The elliptic pencil of circles passing through the two points C and D (the set of red circles, in the figure) has the line CD as its radical axis. The centers of the circles in this pencil lie on the perpendicular bisector of CD. The hyperbolic pencil defined by points C and D (the blue circles) has its radical axis on the perpendicular bisector of line CD, and all its circle centers on line CD.
The radical axis of any pencil of circles, interpreted as an infinite-radius circle, belongs to the pencil. Any three circles belong to a common pencil whenever all three pairs share the same radical axis and their centers are collinear.
Read more about this topic: Apollonian Circles
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