Lagrange Point and Quintic Equation

Tim Mazumdar
 Lagrange Point L1 and the ISRO Aditya L1 mission
Lagrange point lies on between two large Masses M1, M2 ( Sun and earth). At the
Lagrange point L1, the gravitational pulls on a small mass of the orbiter from the M1
and the corresponding pull from M2 balance with the centrifugal force.

In layman's terms the Earths pulls counteracts the effect of Sun’s Gravity and the orbiter
needs bare minimum fuel to keep in orbit - an 18th century example of optimization
theory applied to gravity. This distance(Earth to L1 point) is much longer than to the
Moon its 1.5 Million Kms for Aditya L1( aptly named).

To solve for the Lagrange point one needs to solve for a real root of a Quintic equation.
A quintic generally speaking can have 2 pairs of complex roots and 1 real root. The
Lagrange point computation will yield a quintic

f(x) = ax^5 + bx^4+cx^3+dx^2+cx+e=0

 Further on Lagrange and his 5 points between Earth and Sun
• Lagrange postulated 5 points where the gravitational forces on a small space probe would be cancelled out.
• This is a really cool feature for a space probe as its fuel requirements drop substantially. Once the space probe reaches
and stabilizes itself at a Lagrange point it can remain there for years. Lagrange postulated 5 such points commonly
denoted as L1 through L5. These points are not necessarily stable in the sense of spacecraft dynamics
• The basic gravity equation to determine Lagrange point is an application of a balance of forces between the gravity
force of Sun minus the gravity force exerted by earth equated to the Centrifugal force at a given angular velocity ,
omega. It has been termed as a Circular restricted three body problem.

• Circular Restricted Three-Body Problem (CR3BP) is one way to look at Lagrange points. In the nineteenth century,
Henri Poincaré studied the mathematics of the circular restricted three-body problem. In CR3BP, one mass (the
secondary, e.g. earth) moves in a fixed, circular orbit about a central much larger mass (the primary in this case the
Sun ), while a massless particle( space probe) moves under the gravitational effect of both masses. Poincaré realized
that despite the simplicity of the equations of motion, some solutions to the problem exhibit complicated behavior.

• Ref : Solar System Dynamics – Carl D. Murray, Stanley F. Dermott

Right M2 and M2 are two larger masses and “m” is a near zero mass
L1,L2,L3-L5 points- systems dynamics at the collinear Lagrange points need not be stable
 The basic equations for the three collinear Lagrange points

1
𝛼 3 Lagrange L1 point , one of the three collinear Lagrange
𝐿1 ∶ 𝑅 1 − ,0
3 points
1
𝛼 3
𝐿2 ∶ 𝑅 1 + , 0 Lagrange L2 point , one of the three collinear Lagrange
3 points

5 Lagrange L3 point , one of the three collinear Lagrange

𝐿3 ∶ −𝑅 1 + ( )𝛼 , 0
12 points

Where “alpha” is a mass ratio. 𝛼 = 𝑀2Τ 𝑀1 + 𝑀2 𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑀2 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑚𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑟 𝑀𝑎𝑠𝑠

𝑅 𝑀1 − 𝑀2 3 Lagrange L4 point , form a+jb
𝐿4 ∶ +𝑗 𝑅
2 𝑀1 + 𝑀2 2
𝑅 𝑀1 − 𝑀2 3 Lagrange L5 point , form a-jb
𝐿5 ∶ −𝑗 𝑅
2 𝑀1 + 𝑀2 2
 Simplified derivation of the L1 point.
For Jupiter, its L4 and L5 points are so stable that they've collected their own set of asteroids, known as the
Trojans. These asteroids stayed in the orbit of the gas giant millions of years.

The difference between the two gravitational pulls is the magnitude of centrifugal force.
𝐺𝑚𝑀1 𝐺𝑚𝑀2
2
± 2
= 𝑚𝜔2 𝑅 ± 𝑟
(𝑅 ± 𝑟) 𝑟

𝑎𝑟 5 + 𝑏𝑟 4 + 𝑐𝑟 3 + 𝑑𝑟 2 + 𝑒𝑟 + 𝑓 = 0

Coefficients of the Quintic can be written as

 Lagrange point at the Quintic Equation - Abel Ruffini Theorem
𝐺𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑄𝑢𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑐 ∶ 𝑎𝑥 5 + 𝑏𝑥 4 + 𝑐𝑥 3 + 𝑑𝑥 2 + 𝑒𝑥 + 𝑓 = 0
𝐷𝑒𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑄𝑢𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑐 ∶ 𝐴 𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑐 𝑖𝑠 𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑠𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑒𝑟 𝑥 5 + 𝑤𝑥 + ℎ = 0 .

Solution of Quintic in special cases :

Leopold Kronecker in 1858 attempted to characterize special quintics using a transformation due to the Italian mathematicians
Brioschi and Kronecker . They reduce any general Quintic to a form known as Bring-Jerrard form.
Any Quintic is reducible to the Bring –Jerrard for by using well known transformations of Tschirnhaus which are applicable to
Quintics , Quartics and Cubics.

𝑥 5 + 𝑥 + ℎ = 0 𝑤ℎ𝑟𝑒 ℎ 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟

 Bring and Jarrah references

• E. S. Bring, Meletemata quaedam mathematematica circa transformationem aequationum algebraicarum, Lund,

1786.
• G. B. Jerrard, An essay on the resolution of equations, Taylor and Francis, 1859
• Polynomial Transformations of Tschirnhaus, Bring and Jerrard- Victor Adamchik, 2022, CMU and David Jeffrey ,
Waterloo

𝐺𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑄𝑢𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑐 ∶ 𝑎𝑥 5 + 𝑏𝑥 4 + 𝑐𝑥 3 + 𝑑𝑥 2 + 𝑒𝑥 + 𝑓 = 0
𝑭𝒊𝒓𝒔𝒕 𝒐𝒓𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝒓𝒆𝒅𝒖𝒄𝒆𝒅 𝑸𝒖𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒄: 𝒙𝟓 + 𝒃𝟎,𝟑 𝒙𝟑 + 𝒃𝟎,𝟐 𝒙𝟐 + 𝒃𝟎,𝟏 𝒙 + 𝒃𝟎,𝟎 = 𝟎
𝑺𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒅 𝑶𝒓𝒅𝒆𝒓 𝑷𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒊𝒑𝒂𝒍 𝑸𝒖𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒄: 𝒙𝟓 + 𝒃𝟏,𝟐 𝒙𝟐 + 𝒃𝟏,𝟏 𝒙 + 𝒃𝟏,𝟎 = 𝟎

𝐵𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 − 𝐽𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑄𝑢𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑐: 𝑥 5 + 𝑏3,1 𝑥 + 𝑏3,0 = 0

 Tschirnhaus transformations on a Cubic and Quartic Polynomial equation

𝐺𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑄𝑢𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑐 ∶ 𝑎𝑥 5 + 𝑏𝑥 4 + 𝑐𝑥 3 + 𝑑𝑥 2 + 𝑒𝑥 + 𝑓 = 0
𝐼𝑛 1864 𝐺𝐵 𝐽𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑢𝑝𝑡𝑜 3 𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑚𝑠 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚
𝑎 𝑄𝑢𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑐 𝑃𝑜𝑦𝑛𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑎𝑙 ∶ 𝑥 5 + 𝑒′𝑥 + ℎ′ = 0
These are the coefficients of the Quintic used to solve s restricted 3 body problem.

𝑎 = ± 𝑀1 + 𝑀2 ; 𝑏 = ∓ 𝑀1 + 𝑀2 3𝑅; 𝑐 = ± 𝑀1 + 𝑀2 3𝑅2 ; 𝑑 = + 𝑀2 ∓ 𝑀2 𝑅3 ;
𝑒 = ±2 ∗ 𝑀2 ∗ 𝑅4 ; 𝑓 = 𝑀2𝑅5
𝑏 𝑐
𝑆𝑢𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑡𝑠 = − 𝑎 ; 𝑆𝑢𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑡𝑠 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑛 𝑡𝑤𝑜 𝑎𝑡 𝑎 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 ≔ 𝑎;
𝑑 𝑒
𝑠𝑢𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑡𝑠 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑎𝑡 𝑎 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 ≔ − 𝑎 ; 𝑠𝑢𝑚 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑡𝑠 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒 4 𝑎𝑡 𝑎 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 = 𝑎;
𝑓
𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑡𝑠 =
𝑎