On cusps of caustics by reflection in two dimensional projective Finsler metrics
Differential Geometry
2025-01-10 v1 Dynamical Systems
Abstract
A Finsler, not necessarily symmetric, metric in the plane or its convex subset is called projective if its geodesics are straight segments. We consider Finsler billiards in a convex planar domain endowed with a projective Finsler metric. A caustic by reflection is the envelope of the oriented lines, the billiard trajectories, that start at a point inside the billiard and undergo a fixed number of reflections. We show that such a caustic has at least four cusps. This problem is motivated by the "Last Geometric Statement of Jacobi" that the conjugate locus of a non-umbilic point of a triaxial ellipsoid has exactly four cusps. The present note extends the recent results in this direction concerning Euclidean billiards.
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Cite
@article{arxiv.2501.04867,
title = {On cusps of caustics by reflection in two dimensional projective Finsler metrics},
author = {Serge Tabachnikov},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.04867},
year = {2025}
}