Related papers: Every knot is a billiard knot

Let $D$ be any elliptic right cylinder. We prove that every type of knot can be realized as the trajectory of a ball in $D.$ This proves a conjecture of Lamm and gives a new proof of a conjecture of Jones and Przytycki. We use Jacobi's…

We present a solution of the algebraic version of Birkhoff Conjecture on integrable billiards. Namely we show that every polynomially integrable real bounded convex planar billiard with smooth boundary is an ellipse. We extend this result…

Using Marden's Theorem from geometric theory of polynomials, we show that for every triangle there is a unique ellipse such that the triangle is a billiard trajectory within that ellipse. Since $3$-periodic trajectories of billiards within…

Recently it was proved that every billiard trajectory inside a $C^3$ convex cone has a finite number of reflections. Here, by a $C^3$ convex cone, we mean a cone whose section with some hyperplane is a strictly convex closed $C^3$…

We show that, like cusps, horns in billiards expel every trajectory after finitely many collisions. We further produce an adiabatic invariant.

We show that every polynomially integrable planar outer convex billiard is elliptic.

Revised version: some minor errors and typos fixed; exposition watered. Abstract: To a trajectory of a billiard in parallelogram we assign its symbolic trajectory - the sequence of numbers of coordinate plane, to which the faces met by the…

In the recent paper arXiv:2405.13258, the first author of this note proved that if a billiard in a convex domain in $\mathbb{R}^n$ is simultaneously projective and Minkowski, then it is the standard Euclidean billiard in an appropriate…

The classical Birkhoff conjecture claims that the boundary of a strictly convex integrable billiard table is necessarily an ellipse (or a circle as a special case). In this article we prove a complete local version of this conjecture: a…

A caustic of a billiard is a curve whose tangent lines are reflected to its own tangent lines. A billiard is called Birkhoff caustic-integrable, if there exists a topological annulus adjacent to its boundary from inside that is foliated by…

We show that two-dimensional billiard systems are Turing complete, in the sense that the halting of any Turing machine with a given input is equivalent to a certain bounded trajectory in this system entering a specified open set. Billiards…

From a geometric viewpoint, billiard trajectories and geodesics are related by mutual approximation results. In one direction, it is known that every geodesic curve in the boundary of a smooth convex body can be approximated by a sequence…

We consider two nested billiards in $\mathbb R^d$, $d\geq3$, with $C^2$-smooth strictly convex boundaries. We prove that if the corresponding actions by reflections on the space of oriented lines commute, then the billiards are confocal…

We show that for almost every $(P,\lambda)$ where $P$ is a convex polygon and $\lambda\in(0,1)$, the corresponding outer billiard about $P$ with contraction $\lambda$ is asymptotically periodic, i.e., has a finite number of periodic orbits…

All the segments (or their continuations) of a billiard trajectory inside an ellipsoid of $\Rset^n$ are tangent to n-1 quadrics of the pencil of confocal quadrics determined by the ellipsoid. The quadrics associated to periodic billiard…

The illumination problem is a popular topic in recreational mathematics: In a mirrored room, is every region illuminable from every point in the region? So-called \enquote{unilluminable rooms} are related to \enquote{trapped sets} in…

We solve the Jones conjecture, which states that the exponent sum in a minimal braid representation of a knot in S^3 is a knot invariant, by proving a generalized version of the original one. We apply contact geometry to study this problem…

We prove that every compact plane billiard, bounded by a smooth curve, is insecure: there exist pairs of points $A,B$ such that no finite set of points can block all billiard trajectories from $A$ to $B$.

The goal of this paper is an analysis of the geometry of billiards in ellipses, based on properties of confocal central conics. The extended sides of the billiards meet at points which are located on confocal ellipses and hyperbolas. They…

Consider billiard dynamics in a strictly convex domain, and consider a trajectory that begins with the velocity vector making a small positive angle with the boundary. Lazutkin proved that in two dimensions, it is impossible for this angle…