Related papers: Outer Billiards and the Pinwheel Map
We show that for a rational polygonal billiard, the set of pairs of points that do not illuminate each other (not connected by a billiard trajectory) is finite, and use the same method to extend the results of Leli\`evre, Monteil and Weiss,…
In this paper we study centrally symmetric Birkhoff billiard tables. We introduce a closed invariant set $\mathcal{M}_\mathcal{B}$ consisting of locally maximizing orbits of the billiard map lying inside the region $\mathcal{B}$ bounded by…
We introduce and study several random combinatorial billiard trajectories. Such a system, which depends on a fixed parameter $p\in(0,1)$, models a beam of light that travels in a Euclidean space, occasionally randomly reflecting off of a…
We study the dynamics of billiard models with a modified collision rule: the outgoing angle from a collision is a uniform contraction, by a factor lambda, of the incident angle. These pinball billiards interpolate between a one-dimensional…
Dynamical billiards, or the behavior of a particle traveling in a planar region $D$ undergoing elastic collisions with the boundary, has been extensively studied and is used to model many physical phenomena such as a Boltzmann gas. Of…
We develop a framework for dealing with smooth approximations to billiards with corners in the two-dimensional setting. Let a polygonal trajectory in a billiard start and end up at the same billiard's corner point. We prove that smooth…
We prove that the orbit closure of the determinant is not normal. A similar result is obtained for the orbit closure of the permanent multiplied by a power of a linear form.
An annular billiard is a dynamical system in which a particle moves freely in a disk except for elastic collisions with the boundary, and also a circular scatterer in the interior of the disk. We investigate stability properties of some…
Wire billiard is defined by a smooth embedded closed curve of non-vanishing curvature $k$ in $\mathbb{R}^n$ (a wire). For a class of curves, that we call nice wires, the wire billiard map is area preserving twist map of the cylinder. In…
We study polygonal billiards with reflection laws contracting the reflected angle towards the normal. It is shown that if a polygon does not have parallel sides facing each other, then the corresponding billiard map has finitely many…
Systems of pinned billiard balls serve as simplified models of collisions, where all particles remain fixed in their positions while their (pseudo-)velocities evolve in accordance with the laws of conservation of energy and momentum. For…
We consider a class of random billiards in a tube, where reflection angles at collisions with the boundary of the tube are random variables rather than deterministic (and elastic) quantities. We obtain a (non-standard) Central Limit Theorem…
We introduce the iteration theory for periodic billiard trajectories in a compact and convex domain of the Euclidean space, and we apply it to establish a multiplicity result for non-iterated trajectories.
We give a proof for $(2n + 1,n)$ and $(2n, n-1)$-periodic Ivrii's conjecture for planar outer billiards. We also give new simple geometric proofs for the 3 and 4-periodic cases for outer and symplectic billiards, and generalize for higher…
A system of two masses connected with a weightless rod (called dumbbell in this paper) interacting with a flat boundary is considered. The sharp bound on the number of collisions with the boundary is found using billiard techniques. In…
In this paper, we define a variant of billiards in which the ball bounces around a square grid erasing walls as it goes. We prove that there exist periodic tunnels with arbitrarily large period from any possible starting point, that there…
Cosmological billiards arise as a map of the solution of the Einstein equations, when the most general symmetry for the metric tensor is hypothesized, and points are considered as spatially decoupled in the asymptotic limit towards the…
We prove that any sufficiently small perturbation of an isosceles triangle has a periodic billiard path. Our proof involves the analysis of certain infinite families of Fourier series that arise in connection with triangular billiards, and…
Using heuristic arguments based on the trace formulas, we analytically calculate the semiclassical two-point correlation form factor for a family of rectangular billiards with a barrier of height irrational with respect to the side of the…
In this paper we are interested in the motion of a ball inside a billiard table bounded by a particular smooth curve. This table belongs to a family of billiards which can all be drawn by a common process: the so-called gardener's string…