Related papers: Periodic billiard trajectories in polyhedra
We study periodic linear trajectories in the double pentagon and periodic billiard trajectories in the regular pentagon.
A general formula for the linearized Poincar\'e map of a billiard with a potential is derived. The stability of periodic orbits is given by the trace of a product of matrices describing the piecewise free motion between reflections and the…
Mathematical billiards is much like the real game: a point mass, representing the ball, rolls in a straight line on a (perfectly friction-less) table, striking the sides according to the law of reflection. A billiard trajectory is then…
A periodic trajectory on a polygonal billiard table is stable if it persists under any sufficiently small perturbation of the table. It is a standard result that a periodic trajectory on an $n$-gon gives rise in a natural way to a closed…
We give an optical physicist view of the problem of the trajectories in a polygonal billiard using only basic facts of Optics and the theory of functions of a complex variable. This approach allow us to stablish a certain correspondence…
We review some properties of periodic orbit families in polygonal billiards and discuss in particular a sum rule that they obey. In addition, we provide algorithms to determine periodic orbit families and present numerical results that shed…
We give lower bound on the number of periodic billiard trajectories inside a generic smooth strictly convex closed surface in 3-space: for odd n, there are at least 2(n-1) such trajectories. We apply a topological approach based on the…
In any periodic direction on the regular pentagon billiard table, there exists two combinatorially different billiard paths, with one longer than the other. For each periodic direction, McMullen asked if one could determine whether the…
There is an open set of right triangles such that for each irrational triangle in this set (i) periodic billiards orbits are dense in the phase space, (ii) there is a unique nonsingular perpendicular billiard orbit which is not periodic,…
We introduce a new notion of stability for periodic orbits in polygonal billiards. We say that a periodic orbit of a polygonal billiard is $\lambda$-stable if there is a periodic orbit for the corresponding pinball billiard which converges…
We study the stability of periodic trajectories of planar inverse magnetic billiards, a dynamical system whose trajectories are straight lines inside a connected planar domain $\Omega$ and circular arcs outside $\Omega$. Explicit examples…
We study the notion of Fagnano orbits for dual polygonal billiards. We used them to characterize regular polygons and we study the iteration of the developing map.
We prove that if a polygon admits a periodic billiard orbit satisfying a certain combinatorial criterion, then there are paths of polygons in parameter space for which every polygon in the path admits a periodic billiard orbit of the same…
Any periodic trajectory on an isosceles triangle gives rise to a periodic trajectory on a right triangle obtained by identifying the halves of the original triangle. We examine the relationship between periodic trajectories on isosceles…
In this experimental work we study billiard trajectories in triangular pyramids and try to establish conditions that guarantee the existence (or absence) of 4-cycles (there can be not more, than three of them). We formulate conjectures and…
In this paper, we give detailed analysis and description of periodic trajectories of the billiard system within an ellipsoid in the 3-dimensional Minkowski space, taking into account all possibilities for the caustics. The conditions for…
A periodic orbit on a frictionless billiard table is a piecewise linear path of a billiard ball that begins and ends at the same point with the same angle of incidence. The period of a primitive periodic orbit is the number of times the…
The existence of an aperiodic orbit for an outer billiard outside a regular octagon is proved. Additionally, almost all orbits of such an outer billiard are proved to be periodic. All possible periods are explicitly listed.
We consider billiard trajectories in a smooth convex body in $\mathbb R^d$ and estimate the number of distinct periodic trajectories that make exactly $p$ reflections per period at the boundary of the body. In the case of prime $p$ we…
We give a complete solution of the following problem: Find, classify and count the (classes of) periodic orbits on an equilateral triangle. We prove that Fagnano's period 3 orbit is the only periodic orbit with odd period. A periodic orbit…