Relative periodic solutions in spatial Kepler problem with symmetric perturbation

Abstract The spatial Kepler problem with a perturbation satisfying the rotational symmetry w.r.t. the z -axis and the reflection symmetry w.r.t. the ( x , y )-plane, can be reduced to an Hamiltonian system with 2 degrees of freedom after fixing the angular momentum. For small enough perturbations, we show that for certain choices of energy and angular momentum, the corresponding energy surface is compact and diffeomorphic to S 3 , and on each compact energy surface there is a unique z -symmetric brake orbit, which forms a Hopf link with a planar relative periodic orbit. Moreover under some additional technical assumptions, by applying recent results from symplectic dynamics (Cristofaro-Gardiner et al 2023 Geom. Topol. 27 3801–31) and Franks’ theorem, we prove there are infinitely many relative periodic orbits on each compact energy surface. These results can be applied to the motion of a satellite around a uniformly mass-distributed ellipsoid and the n -pyramidal problem, where one point mass moves along the z -axis and n other equal point masses form a regular n -gon perpendicular to the z -axis.