On the stability of the hypothetical quintet system of TW Draconis

Abstract

Aarseth`s NBODY 1 code is used to study the stability of the quintet system of DW Draconis postulated by Abhyankar & Panchatsaram (1984). It is found that the observed (O - C) curve based on the ephemeris by Tremko & Kreiner (1981) can be reproduced by taking appropriate initial conditions; but the system becomes unstable outside the range of observations. The nature of instability is studied.