Related papers: Polygonal billiards and "optical tori"
Given a graph $G$ with vertex set $\{1,\ldots,n\}$, we can project the graphical arrangement of $G$ to an $(n-1)$-dimensional torus to obtain a toric hyperplane arrangement. Adams, Defant, and Striker constructed a toric combinatorial…
We illustrate the theory of one-dimensional pluri-Lagrangian systems with the example of commuting billiard maps in confocal quadrics.
We give lowed bounds on the number of periodic trajectories in strictly convex smooth billiards in $\R^{m+1}$ for $m\ge 3$. For plane billiards (when m=1) such bounds were obtained by G. Birkhoff in the 1920's. Our proof is based on…
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.
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…
We show that wave functions in planar rational polygonal billiards (all angles rationally related to Pi) can be expanded in a basis of quasi-stationary and spatially regular states. Unlike the energy eigenstates, these states are directly…
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…
Motivated by the high-energy limit of the $N$-body problem we construct non-deterministic billiard process. The billiard table is the complement of a finite collection of linear subspaces within a Euclidean vector space. A trajectory is a…
The study of polygonal billiards, particularly those in the regular pentagon, has been the subject of two recent papers. One of these papers approaches the problem of discovering the periodic trajectories on the pentagon by identifying…
We give the asymptotic growth of the number of primitive periodic trajectories of a two dimensional dispersive billiard, when we prescribe their number of bounces on one of the obstacles.
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…
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.
Rational polygonal billiards are one of the key models among the larger class of pseudo-integrable billiards. Their billiard flow may be lifted to the geodesic flow on a translation surface. Whereas such classical billiards have been much…
A right triangular billiard system is equivalent to the system of two colliding particles confined in a one-dimensional box. In spite of their seeming simplicity, no definite conclusion has been drawn so far concerning their ergodic…
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…
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,…
We show that in a typical polygon the billiard map as well as its associated subshift obtained by coding orbits by the sequence of sides they visit are topologically weakly mixing.
In an ordinary billiard trajectories of a Hamiltonian system are elastically reflected after a collision with a hypersurface (scatterer). If the scatterer is a submanifold of codimension more than one, we say that the billiard is…
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 give a tree structure on the set of all periodic directions on the golden L, which gives an associated tree structure on the set of periodic directions for the pentagon billiard table and double pentagon surface. We use this to give the…