Related papers: Examples of reflective projective billiards and ou…
We give a beautiful explicit example of a convex plane curve such that the outer billiard has a given finite number of invariant curves. Moreover, the dynamics on these curves is a standard shift. This example can be considered as an outer…
We investigate a rotated, orthogonal gravitational wedge billiard - a special case of the asymmetric wedge billiard - in which the dynamics are integrable. We derive equations and conditions under which periodic orbits may be constructed…
We introduce a new equivalence relation on the set of all polygonal billiards. We say that two billiards (or polygons) are order equivalent if each of the billiards has an orbit whose footpoints are dense in the boundary and the two…
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,…
We prove that polygonal billiards with contracting reflection laws exhibit hyperbolic attractors with countably many ergodic SRB measures. These measures are robust under small perturbations of the reflection law, and the tables for which…
A caustic of a strictly convex planar bounded billiard is a smooth curve whose tangent lines are reflected from the billiard boundary to its tangent lines. The famous Birkhoff Conjecture states that if the billiard boundary has an inner…
A submanifold of the standard symplectic space determines a partially defined, multi-valued symplectic map, the outer symplectic billiard correspondence. Two points are in this correspondence if the midpoint of the segment connecting them…
Astute variations in the geometry of mathematical billiard tables have been and continue to be a source of understanding their wide range of dynamical behaviors, from regular to chaotic. Viewing standard specular billiards in the broader…
We show that the complexity of the billiard in a typical polygon grows cubically and the number of saddle connections grows quadratically along certain subsequences. It is known that the set of points whose first n-bounces hits the same…
This paper studies billiard models with a generalized law of reflection, the so-called projective billiards. They unify various laws, including the classical one in a Euclidean, pseudo-Euclidean or Riemannian metric. They were introduced…
Dynamical billiards, or the behavior of a particle traveling in a planar region $D$ undergoing elastic collisions with the boundary, has been extensively studied and is used to model many physical phenomena such as a Boltzmann gas. Of…
We derive semiclassical contributions of periodic orbits from a boundary integral equation for three-dimensional billiard systems. We use an iterative method that keeps track of the composition of the stability matrix and the Maslov index…
For every quadrilateral sufficiently close to a rectangle, we shall show that it possess a periodic billiard path. This is an REU work done at ICERM in Summer 2012.
Recent experiments have shown that many species of microorganisms leave a solid surface at a fixed angle determined by steric interactions and near-field hydrodynamics. This angle is completely independent of the incoming angle. For several…
The problem of the existence of an analytic normal form near an equilibrium point of an area-preserving map and analyticity of the associated coordinate change is a classical problem in dynamical systems going back to Poincar\'e and Siegel.…
In an ordinary billiard system 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…
The question of invisibility for bodies with mirror surface is studied in the framework of geometrical optics. We construct bodies that are invisible/have zero resistance in two mutually orthogonal directions, and prove that there do not…
Two polygons $P,Q$ are code equivalent if there are billiard orbits $u,v$ which hit the same sequence of sides and such that the projections of the orbits are dense in the boundaries $\partial P, \partial Q$. Our main results show when code…
We prove that a polygonal billiard with one-sided mirrors has zero topological entropy. In certain cases we show sub exponential and for other polynomial estimates on the complexity.
We prove Poisson limit laws for open billiards where the holes are on the boundaries of billiard tables (rather than some abstract holes in the phase space of a billiard). Such holes are of the main interest for billiard systems, especially…