Three-body problem -- from Newton to supercomputer plus machine learning

Abstract

The famous three-body problem can be traced back to Newton in 1687, but quite few families of periodic orbits were found in 300 years thereafter. In this paper, we propose an effective approach and roadmap to numerically gain planar periodic orbits of three-body systems with arbitrary masses by means of machine learning based on an artificial neural network (ANN) model. Given any a known periodic orbit as a starting point, this approach can provide more and more periodic orbits (of the same family name) with variable masses, while the mass domain having periodic orbits becomes larger and larger, and the ANN model becomes wiser and wiser. Finally we have an ANN model trained by means of all obtained periodic orbits of the same fam-ily, which provides a convenient way to give accurate enough predictions of periodic orbits with arbitrary masses for physicists and astronomers. It suggests that the high-performance computer and artificial intelligence (including machine learning) should be the key to gain periodic orbits of the famous three-body problem.