Kinematic orbits and the structure of the internal space for systems of five or more bodies

The internal space for a molecule, atom, or other n-body system can be conv eniently parametrized by 3n - 9 kinematic angles and three kinematic invari ants. For a fixed set of kinematic invariants, the kinematic angles paramet rize a subspace, called a kinematic orbit, of the n-body internal space. Bu ilding on an earlier analysis of the three- and four-body problems, we deri ve the form of these kinematic orbits (that is, their topology) for the gen eral n-body problem. The case n = 5 is studied in detail, along with the pr eviously studied cases n = 3, 4.