Related papers: Soft billiards with corners
We introduce the spherical wedge billiard, a dynamical system consisting of a particle moving along a geodesic on a closed non-Euclidean surface of a spherical wedge. We derive the analytic form of the corresponding Poincar\'e map and find…
In 'supersingular' scattering the potential $g^2U_A(r)$ involves a variable nonlinear parameter $A$ upon the increase of which the potential also increases beyond all limits everywhere off the origin and develops a uniquely high level of…
From a geometric viewpoint, billiard trajectories and geodesics are related by mutual approximation results. In one direction, it is known that every geodesic curve in the boundary of a smooth convex body can be approximated by a sequence…
Dynamical billiards consist of a particle on a two-dimensional table, bouncing elastically off a boundary curve. The state of the system is given by two numbers: one describing the location along the curve where the bounce occurs, and…
It is well-known that billiards in polygons cannot be chaotic (hyperbolic). Particularly Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy of any polygonal billiard is zero. We consider physical polygonal billiards where a moving particle is a hard disc rather than…
H${\acute{e}}$non [8] used an inclined billiard to investigate aspects of chaotic scattering which occur in satellite encounters and in other situations. His model consisted of a piecewise mapping which described the motion of a point…
We give lower bound on the number of periodic billiard trajectories inside a generic smooth strictly convex closed surface in 3-space: for odd n, there are at least 2(n-1) such trajectories. We apply a topological approach based on the…
Berry's random wave conjecture posits that high energy eigenfunctions of chaotic systems resemble random monochromatic waves at the Planck scale. One important consequence is that, at the Planck scale around "many" points in the manifold,…
We consider a one-parameter family of invertible maps of a two-dimensional lattice, obtained by applying round-off to planar rotations. All orbits of these maps are conjectured to be periodic. We let the angle of rotation approach pi/2, and…
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…
\textsc{J. Hadamard} studied the geometric properties of geodesic flows on surfaces of negative curvature, thus initiating "Symbolic Dynamics". In this article, we follow the same geometric approach to study the geodesic trajectories of…
For a given a normally hyperbolic invariant manifold, whose stable and unstable manifolds intersect transversally, we consider several tools and techniques to detect trajectories with prescribed itineraries: the scattering map, the…
This work presents a framework for billiards in convex domains on two dimensional Riemannian manifolds. These domains are contained in connected, simply connected open subsets which are totally normal. In this context, some basic properties…
We study a two-particle circular billiard containing two finite-size circular particles that collide elastically with the billiard boundary and with each other. Such a two-particle circular billiard provides a clean example of an…
We study the geometry of reflection of a massive point-like particle at conic section boundaries. Thereby the particle is subjected to a central force associated with either a Kepler or Hooke potential. The conic section is assumed to have…
We construct semi-infinite billiard domains which reverse the direction of most incoming particles. We prove that almost all particles will leave the open billiard domain after a finite number of reflections. Moreover, with high probability…
We consider the semiclassical quantization of the Sinai billiard for disk radii R small compared to the wave length 2 pi/k. Via the application of the periodic orbit theory of diffraction we derive the semiclassical spectral determinant.…
We characterize fundamental domains of affine reflection groups as those polyhedral convex bodies which support a continuous billiard dynamics. We interpret this characterization in the broader context of Alexandrov geometry and prove an…
We review a virial-type estimate which bounds the strength of interaction for a gas of $N$ hard spheres (billiard balls) dispersing into Euclidean space $\mathbb{R}^d$. This type of estimate has been known for decades in the context of…
We study ray dynamics in a square billiard that allows mode conversion and is parametrised by $\kappa$, the ratio of the velocities of the two modes. At $\kappa \rightarrow 1^+$, conversion occurs at every reflection and periodic orbits…