Two-body Problem - Reduction To Two Independent, One-body Problems

Reduction To Two Independent, One-body Problems

Let x1 and x2 be the positions of the two bodies, and m1 and m2 be their masses. The goal is to determine the trajectories x1(t) and x2(t) for all times t, given the initial positions x1(t = 0) and x2(t = 0) and the initial velocities v1(t = 0) and v2(t = 0).

When applied to the two masses, Newton's second law states that

\mathbf{F}_{12}(\mathbf{x}_{1},\mathbf{x}_{2}) = m_{1} \ddot{\mathbf{x}}_{1} \quad \quad \quad (\mathrm{Equation} \ 1)
\mathbf{F}_{21}(\mathbf{x}_{1},\mathbf{x}_{2}) = m_{2} \ddot{\mathbf{x}}_{2} \quad \quad \quad (\mathrm{Equation} \ 2)

where F12 is the force on mass 1 due to its interactions with mass 2, and F21 is the force on mass 2 due to its interactions with mass 1.

Adding and subtracting these two equations decouples them into two one-body problems, which can be solved independently. Adding equations (1) and (2) results in an equation describing the center of mass (barycenter) motion. By contrast, subtracting equation (2) from equation (1) results in an equation that describes how the vector r = x1 − x2 between the masses changes with time. The solutions of these independent one-body problems can be combined to obtain the solutions for the trajectories x1(t) and x2(t).

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