Central configurations, Morse and fixed point indices

Abstract: We compute the fixed point index of non-degenerate central configurations for the $n$-body problem in the euclidean space of dimension $d$, relating it to the Morse index of the gravitational potential function $\bar U$ induced on the manifold of all maximal $O(d)$-orbits. In order to do so, we analyze the geometry of maximal orbit type manifolds, and compute Morse indices with respect to the mass-metric bilinear form on configuration spaces.