English

Long Hitting time for translation flows and L-shaped billiards

Dynamical Systems 2017-08-15 v3 Number Theory

Abstract

We consider the flow in direction θ\theta on a translation surface and we study the asymptotic behavior for r0r\to 0 of the time needed by orbits to hit the rr-neighborhood of a prescribed point, or more precisely the exponent of the corresponding power law, which is known as hitting time. For flat tori the limsup of hitting time is equal to the diophantine type of the direction θ\theta. In higher genus, we consider a generalized geometric notion of diophantine type of a direction θ\theta and we seek for relations with hitting time. For genus two surfaces with just one conical singularity we prove that the limsup of hitting time is always less or equal to the square of the diophantine type. For any square-tiled surface with the same topology the diophantine type itself is a lower bound, and any value between the two bounds can be realized, moreover this holds also for a larger class of origamis satisfying a specific topological assumption. Finally, for the so-called Eierlegende Wollmilchsau origami, the equality between limsup of hitting time and diophantine type subsists. Our results apply to L-shaped billiards.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1705.03328,
  title  = {Long Hitting time for translation flows and L-shaped billiards},
  author = {Dong Han Kim and Luca Marchese and Stefano Marmi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1705.03328},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

55 Pages, 6 Figures. Theorem 2.2 and Proposition 2.3 of this version establish a general result, covering Theorems 2.2 and 2.3 of the previous version as particular cases. New result added by Proposition 2.5 of this version. Minor error fixed in the proof of Proposition 6.8 of the previous version, now corresponding to Proposition 7.5 of this version. The structure of the paper has been revised

R2 v1 2026-06-22T19:41:42.733Z