Note that MathJax only implements math-mode macros, not text-mode ones
like \. and \' and the other text-mode accents. But it does have
\dot, \acute, and the other related math-mode versions, so if you are
using this in mathematics, you may really want "\dot a" instead of "\.
{a}". If you are using this in \text{}, then since MathJax doesn't
process macros in text mode, you won't be able to use either \. or
\unicode. In that case, you will need to enter the unicode characters
directly. So you could use ȧ directly, or perhaps ȧ depending
on the way that your pages are being constructed. E.g.,
\text{ȧ}
or
\text{ȧ}
would do.
Davide