Related papers: Billiard trajectories inside Cones
We consider the billiard map in a convex polyhedron of $\mathbb{R}^3$, and we prove that it is of zero topological entropy.
In this note we prove some Rogers-Shepard type inequalities for the lengths of shortest closed billiard trajectories, mostly in the planar case. We also establish some properties of closed billiard trajectories in Hanner polytopes, having…
Rigid bodies collision maps in dimension two, under a natural set of physical requirements, can be classified into two types: the standard specular reflection map and a second which we call, after Broomhead and Gutkin, no-slip. This leads…
We consider billiard ball motion in a convex domain on a constant curvature surface influenced by the constant magnetic field. We examine the existence of integral of motion which is polynomial in velocities. We prove that if such an…
It is shown that the set of 4-period orbits in outer billiard with piecewise smooth convex boundary has an empty interior, provided that no four corners of the boundary form a parallelogram.
A class of non-compact billiards is introduced, namely the infinite step billiards, i.e., systems of a point particle moving freely in the domain $\Omega = \bigcup_{n\in\N} [n,n+1] \times [0,p_n]$, with elastic reflections on the boundary;…
We consider billiard ball motion in a convex domain of the Euclidean plane bounded by a piece-wise smooth curve influenced by the constant magnetic field. We show that if there exists a polynomial in velocities integral of the magnetic…
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…
The billiard dynamics inside an ellipse is integrable. It has zero topological entropy, four separatrices in the phase space, and a continuous family of convex caustics: the confocal ellipses. We prove that the curvature flow destroys the…
We prove that given a finite collection of cylinders in $\R^3$ with the property that any two them intersect, then there is a line intersecting an $\alpha$ fraction of the cylinders where $\alpha=\frac 1{28}$. This is a special case of an…
In any periodic direction on the regular pentagon billiard table, there exists two combinatorially different billiard paths, with one longer than the other. For each periodic direction, McMullen asked if one could determine whether the…
A massive particle under the influence of a constant gravitational force that is bouncing inside an ideal reflecting mirror described by some function $f(x)$ is considered. For the associated flight trajectories we derive the parametric…
The most general solution to the Einstein equations in $4=3+1$ dimensions in the asymptotical limit close to the cosmological singularity under the BKL (Belinski-Khalatnikov-Lifshitz) hypothesis, for which space gradients are neglected and…
Students in introductory physics courses struggle to understand virtual image formation by a plane mirror and the proper construction of ray diagrams. This difficulty, if not sufficiently addressed, results in further problems throughout…
In this paper, we define a variant of billiards in which the ball bounces around a square grid erasing walls as it goes. We prove that there exist periodic tunnels with arbitrarily large period from any possible starting point, that there…
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 every polynomially integrable planar outer convex billiard is elliptic.
We present some foundational results about the outer length billiard system, including its generating function and the invariant area form. We describe the limiting behavior of the orbits far away from the billiard table: the orbits of the…
We investigate the integrability of Kepler billiards-mechanical billiard systems in which a particle moves under the influence of a Keplerian potential and reflects elastically at the boundary of a strictly convex planar domain. Our main…
In this paper we prove that in any analytic one-parameter family of twist maps of the annulus, homotopically invariant curves filled with periodic points corresponding to a given rotation number, either exist for all values of the…