Abstract: Heteroclinic connections between mean-motion resonances are known to be crucial for the generation of large-scale transport and chaos in planet-moon systems for low-energy space mission design. For Jovian tours, a key problem is finding heteroclinics between resonances with different moons. However, for an accurate search, a model including the planet and multiple moons is necessary, necessitating a higher dimensional and more complicated analysis than that carried out in prior planar CRTBP-based studies. This study will present some preliminary results from a search for trajectories between orbits resonant with different Jovian moons, namely Ganymede and Europa, in a restricted 4 body model.
We first demonstrate numerical continuation of 3:4 Jupiter-Europa and 3:2, 7:5, and 4:3 Jupiter-Ganymede resonances from the CRTBP into the 4-body model. Numerous tori corresponding to these resonances are computed, but we also discover strong evidence that the more unstable (and thus useful) Jupiter-Ganymede CRTBP resonant orbits likely break down for perturbation parameter thresholds smaller than the physical Europa mass parameter. After computing the unbroken tori and their manifolds, we use GPU-assisted tools inspired by collision detection algorithms from computer graphics to rapidly find near-intersections of Jupiter-Ganymede and Jupiter-Europa resonant orbit manifolds. We find that the 4:3 Jupiter-Ganymede to 3:4 Jupiter-Europa resonance pair is a promising candidate for further analysis.
