Related papers: Outer Billiards with Contraction: Regular Polygons
Given a planar oval, consider the maximal area of inscribed $n$-gons resp. the minimal area of circumscribed $n$-gons. One obtains two sequences indexed by $n$, and one of Dowker's theorems states that the first sequence is concave and the…
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 study billiards in domains enclosed by circular polygons. These are closed $C^1$ strictly convex curves formed by finitely many circular arcs. We prove the existence of a set in phase space, corresponding to generic sliding trajectories…
This paper explores the number of parallelograms that appear in a billiard path that enters one corner of a rectangle and leaves a second corner of a rectangle as a function of the normalized dimensions of the rectangle.
We consider classical dynamical properties of a particle in a constant gravitational force and making specular reflections with circular, elliptic or oval boundaries. The model and collision map are described and a detailed study of the…
We give a simple proof of our previous result with V. Zharnitsky that the set of period 4 orbits in planar outer billiard with piecewise smooth convex boundary has empty interior, provided that no four corners of the boundary form a…
We consider a billiard table rectangle. If a billiard ball is sent out from position F(1) at the angle of $\pi/4$, then the ball will rebound against the sides of the rectangle consecutively in points $F(2),F(3),...$. Let $n\geq5$ and…
We describe conditions under which higher-dimensional billiard models in bounded, convex regions are fully chaotic, generalizing the Bunimovich stadium to dimensions above two. An example is a three-dimensional stadium bounded by a cylinder…
For a given rotation number we compute the Hausdorff dimension of the set of well approximable numbers. We use this result and an inhomogeneous version of Jarnik's theorem to show strong recurrence properties of the billiard flow in certain…
We construct semi-infinite billiard domains which reverse the direction of most incoming particles. We prove that almost all particles will leave the open billiard domain after a finite number of reflections. Moreover, with high probability…
We study the problem of arithmetic billiards from a new perspective. We first raise a similar problem about reflecting lights inside grids. For the solution to this problem, we will give three proofs. Next, we consider a similar problem in…
Sufficiently differentiable oval billiards always have invariant rotational curves, but there are only two types of ovals with an invariant horizontal circle in its phase-space: the constant width ovals and some very special symmetric…
We study dynamical properties of the billiard flow on convex polyhedra away from a neighbourhood of the non-smooth part of the boundary, called ``pockets''. We prove there are only finitely many immersed periodic tubes missing the pockets…
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 generalize the following simple geometric fact: the only centrally symmetric convex curve of constant width is a circle. Billiard interpretation of the condition of constant width reads: a planar curve has constant width, if and only if,…
A simplex is the convex hull of $n+1$ points in $\mathbb{R}^{n}$ which form an affine basis. A regular simplex $\Delta^n$ is a simplex with sides of the same length. We consider the billiard flow inside a regular simplex of $\mathbb{R}^n$.…
Polygonalization of any smooth billiard boundary can be carried out in several ways. We show here that the semiclassical description depends on the polygonalization process and the results can be inequivalent. We also establish that…
Following a recent paper by Baryshnikov and Zharnitskii, we consider outer billiards in the plane possessing invariant curves consisting of periodic orbits. We prove the existence and abundance of such tables using tools from sub-Riemannian…
We rigorously investigate closed Minkowski/Finsler billiard trajectories on $n$-dimensional convex bodies. We outline the central properties in comparison and differentiation from the Euclidean special case and establish two main results…
We study polygonal billiards with one-sided vertical mirror scattered on a square billiard table. We associate trajectories of these kinds of billiards with double rotations and study orbit behavior and questions of complexity.