Related papers: Billiards, Checkers, and Quadratic Reciprocity

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…

We consider a mechanical system consisting of an infinite rod (a straight line) and a ball (a massless point) on the plane. The rod rotates uniformly around one of its points. The ball is reflected elastically when colliding with the rod…

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…

Conway Checkers is a game played with a checker placed in each square of the lower half of an infinite checkerboard. Pieces move by jumping over an adjacent checker, removing the checker jumped over. Conway showed that it is not possible to…

We define billiards in the context of sub-Finsler Geometry. We provide symplectic and variational (or rather, control theoretical) descriptions of the problem and show that they coincide. We then discuss several phenomena in this setting,…

We study the geometry of billiard orbits on rectangular billiards. A truncated billiard orbit induces a partition of the rectangle into polygons. We prove that thirteen is a sharp upper bound for the number of different areas of these…

Given a random map (T_1, T_2, T_3, T_4, p_1, p_2, p_3, p_4), we define a random billiard map on a surface of constant curvature (Euclidean plane, hyperbolic plane, or the sphere). The Liouville measure is invariant for this billiard map.…

We introduce a new class of billiard systems in the plane, with boundaries formed by finitely many arcs of confocal conics such that they contain some reflex angles. Fundamental dynamical, topological, geometric, and arithmetic properties…

We consider two nested billiards in $\mathbb R^d$, $d\geq3$, with $C^2$-smooth strictly convex boundaries. We prove that if the corresponding actions by reflections on the space of oriented lines commute, then the billiards are confocal…

This paper studies balance properties for billiard words. Billiard words generalize Sturmian words by coding trajectories in hypercubic billiards. In the setting of aperiodic order, they also provide the simplest examples of quasicrystals,…

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…

We study the deep interplay between geometry of quadrics in d-dimensional space and the dynamics of related integrable billiard systems. Various generalizations of Poncelet theorem are reviewed. The corresponding analytic conditions of…

Combinatorial Game Theory is a branch of mathematics and theoretical computer science that studies sequential 2-player games with perfect information. Normal play is the convention where a player who cannot move loses. Here, we generalize…

We study the collision between the cue and the ball in the game of billiards. After studying the collision process in detail, we write the (rotational) velocities of the ball and the cue after the collision. We also find the squirt angle of…

There is an open set of right triangles such that for each irrational triangle in this set (i) periodic billiards orbits are dense in the phase space, (ii) there is a unique nonsingular perpendicular billiard orbit which is not periodic,…

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…

Billiards tables - a minimal model for particles moving in a confined region - are known to present classical (and quantum) different features according to their shape, ranging from strongly chaotic to integrable dynamics. Here we consider…

Billiard systems offer a simple setting to study regular and chaotic dynamics. Gravitational billiards are generalizations of these classical billiards which are amenable to both analytical and experimental investigations. Most previous…

A billiard in the form of a stadium with periodically perturbed boundary is considered. Two types of such billiards are studied: stadium with strong chaotic properties and a near-rectangle billiard. Phase portraits of such billiards are…

Several articles deal with tilings with various shapes, and also a very frequent type of combinatorics is to examine the walks on graphs or on grids. We combine these two things and give the numbers of the shortest walks crossing the tiled…