Related papers: Billiards in ellipses revisited
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…
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…
In this article, we study polygonal symplectic billiards. We provide new results, some of which are inspired by numerical investigations. In particular, we present several polygons for which all orbits are periodic. We demonstrate their…
A comprehensive analysis of periodic trajectories of billiards within ellipses in the Euclidean plane is presented. The novelty of the approach is based on a relationship recently established by the authors between periodic billiard…
The 1d family of Poncelet polygons interscribed between two circles is known as the Bicentric family. Using elliptic functions and Liouville's theorem, we show (i) that this family has invariant sum of internal angle cosines and (ii) that…
New invariants in the one-dimensional family of 3-periodic orbits in the elliptic billiard were introduced by the authors in "Can the Elliptic Billiard Still Surprise Us?" (2020), Math. Intelligencer, 42(1): 6--17, some of which were…
A comprehensive study of periodic trajectories of billiards within ellipsoids in $d$-dimensional Euclidean space is presented. The novelty of the approach is based on a relationship established between periodic billiard trajectories and…
We prove some partial results on the periodicity of billiard systems on graphs. The results specialize to the case of $n$ billiards with equal mass on the unit interval or circle traveling at the same speed.
In this text we study billiards on ovals and investigate some consequences of a rotational symmetry of the boundary on the dynamics. As it simplifies some calculations, the symmetry helps to obtain the results. We focus on periodic orbits…
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 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…
We consider the billiard map inside a polyhedron. We give a condition for the stability of the periodic trajectories. We apply this result to the case of the tetrahedron. We deduce the existence of an open set of tetrahedra which have a…
We deduce a recent theorem by R. Schwartz on the structure of the so-called Poncelet grid from complete integrability of the billiard in an ellipse
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…
We derive necessary and sufficient conditions for periodic and for elliptic periodic trajectories of billiards within an ellipse in the Minkowski plane in terms of an underlining elliptic curve. We provide several examples of periodic and…
We introduce Fregier ellipses which generalize the Fregier point in euclidean geometry. Subject is related to Dynamical Systems and Poncelet's closure theorem aka Poncelet porism and displaying geometric invariants (area,angles). Special…
A polygon is called rational if the angle between each pair of sides is a rational multiple of $\pi.$ The main theorem we will prove is Theorem 1: For rational polygons, periodic points of the billiard flow are dense in the phase space of…
Can any secrets still be shed by that much studied, uniquely integrable, Elliptic Billiard? Starting by examining the family of 3-periodic trajectories and the loci of their Triangular Centers, one obtains a beautiful and variegated gallery…
We consider 3-periodic orbits in an elliptic billiard. Numerical experiments conducted by Dan Reznik have shown that the locus of the centers of inscribed circles of the corresponding triangles is an ellipse. We prove this fact by 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…