On the hill stability of motion in the three-body problem

Abstract

We consider the special case of the three-body problem where the mass of one of the bodies is considerably smaller than the masses of the other two bodies and investigate the relationship between the Lagrange stability of a pair of massive bodies and the Hill stability of the system of three bodies. We prove a theorem on the existence of Hill stable motions in the case considered. We draw an analogy with the restricted three-body problem. The theorem obtained allows one to conclude that there exist Hill stable motions for the elliptic restricted three-body problem.