Related papers: Dan Reznik's identities and more

A nice trick for studying the billiard flow in a rational polygon is to unfold the polygon along the trajectories. This gives rise to a translation or half-translation surface tiled by the original polygon, or equivalently an Abelian or…

In 1999, K. Bezdek posed a conjecture stating that among all convex bodies in $\mathbb R^3$, ellipsoids and bodies of revolution are characterized by the fact that all their planar sections have an axis of reflection. We prove Bezdek's…

We study the billiard dynamics in annular tables between two excentric circles. As the center and the radius of the inner circle change, a two parameters map is defined by the first return of trajectories to the obstacle. We obtain an…

It is known that $C^1$-smooth strictly convex Radon norms in $\mathbb{R}^2$ can be characterized by the property that the outer billiard map, which corresponds to the unit ball of the norm, has an invariant curve consisting of 4-periodic…

We use Ratner's theorem to compute the asymptotics of the number of (cylinders of) periodic trajectories in a rectangle with a barrier, assuming that the location p/q of the barrier is rational. We also show that as q tends to infinity, the…

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…

In this paper the problem of estimating the number of periodical billiard trajectories is considered. The main result is the theorem on Morse theory for periodical billiard trajectories.

In this paper we prove two asymptotic estimates for pairs of closed trajectories for open billiards similar to those established by Pollicott and Sharp for closed geodesics on negatively curved compact surfaces. The first of these estimates…

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…

In this paper we prove the Birkhoff-Poritsky conjecture for centrally-symmetric $C^2$-smooth convex planar billiards. We assume that the domain $\mathcal A$ between the invariant curve of $4$-periodic orbits and the boundary of the phase…

We compute the volumes of the eigenform loci in the moduli space of genus two Abelian differentials. From this, we obtain asymptotic formulas for counting closed billiards paths in certain L-shaped polygons with barriers.

We introduce a new dynamical system that we call "tiling billiards," where trajectories refract through planar tilings. This system is motivated by a recent discovery of physical substances with negative indices of refraction. We…

In this work we study the geometrical properties of the high-lying eigenfunctions (200,000 and above) which are deep in the semiclassical regime. The system we are analyzing is the billiard system inside the region defined by the quadratic…

Gravitational billiards provide an experimentally accessible arena for testing formulations of nonlinear dynamics. We present a mathematical model that captures the essential dynamics required for describing the motion of a realistic…

We explore the triangle outer billiards map in points at infinity in the hyperbolic plane, focusing on the rotation number. Building on Dogru and Tabachnikov's work, which established the conditions for triangles where the rotation number…

By making use of the greatest common divisor's ($gcd$) properties we can highlight some connections between playing billiard inside a unit square and the Fibonacci sequence as well as the Euclidean algorithm. In particular by defining two…

Here are two problems. First, understand the dynamics of a tiling billiard in a cyclic quadrilateral periodic tiling. Second, describe the topology of connected components of plane sections of a centrally symmetric subsurface $S \subset…

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…

Poncelet maps are circle maps constructed geometrically for a pair of nested ellipses; they are related to the classic billiard map on an elliptical domain when the orbit has an elliptical caustic. Here we show how the rotation number of…

We indulge in what mathematicians call frivolous activities. In Arithmetic Billiards, a ball is bouncing around in a rectangle. In Parity Checkers we place checkers on a checkerboard under certain parity constraints. Both activities turn…