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Periodic billiard orbits of self-similar Sierpinski carpets

Dynamical Systems 2016-08-30 v1

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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