Periodic orbits and binary collisions in the classical three-body Coulomb problem

In the helium case of the classical three-body Coulomb problem in two dimensions with zero angular momentum, we develop a procedure to find periodic orbits applying two symbolic dynamics for one-dimensional and planar problems. Focusing our attention on binary collisions with these tools, a sequence of periodic orbits are predicted and are actually found numerically. A family of periodic orbits found has regularity in their actions. For this family of periodic orbits, it is shown that thanks to its regularity, a partial summation of the Gutzwiller trace formula with a daring approximation gives a Rydberg series of energy levels.