Periodic billiard orbits of self-similar Sierpinski carpets
Abstract
We identify a collection of periodic billiard orbits in a self-similar Sierpinski carpet billiard table. Based on a refinement of the result of Durand-Cartagena and Tyson regarding nontrivial line segments in a self-similar Sierpinski carpet, we construct what is called an eventually constant sequence of compatible periodic orbits of prefractal Sierpinski carpet billiard tables. The trivial limit of this sequence then constitutes a periodic orbit of a self-similar Sierpinski carpet billiard table. We also determine the corresponding translation surface for each prefractal billiard table, and show that the genera of a sequence of translation surfaces increase without bound. Various open questions and possible directions for future research are offered.
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Cite
@article{arxiv.1303.4032,
title = {Periodic billiard orbits of self-similar Sierpinski carpets},
author = {Joe P. Chen and Robert G. Niemeyer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1303.4032},
year = {2016}
}
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