We consider a random billiard map, the one in which the standard specular reflection rule is replaced by a random reflection given by a Markov operator. We exhibit an invariant measure for random billiards on general tables. In the special case of a circular table we show that almost every (random) orbit is dense in the boundary as well as in the circular ring formed between the circle boundary and the random caustic. We additionally prove Strong Knudsen's Law for a particular case of families of absolutely continuous measures with respect to Liouville.
We study the non-persistence of horizontal invariant circles for geodesically convex perturbations of the geodesic circular billiard on surfaces of constant curvature and show that the result obtained by Ramírez-Ros for the planar case, remains true for billiards on surfaces with constant curvature.
We consider the free motion of a point particle inside a circular billiard with periodically moving boundary, with the assumption that the collisions of the particle with the boundary are elastic so that the energy of the particle is not preserved. It is known that if the motion of the boundary is regular enough then the energy is bounded due to the existence of invariant curves. We show that it is nevertheless possible that the motion of the particle is chaotic, also under regularity assumptions for the moving boundary. More precisely, we show that there exists a class of functions describing…
The locus of centers of inscribed circles in triangles, the 3-periodic orbits of an elliptic billiard, is also an ellipse. In this work we obtain the canonical equation of this ellipse, complementing the previous results obtained by O. Romaskevich.
We prove some partial results on the periodicity of billiard systems on graphs. The results specialize to the case of $n$ billiards with equal mass on the unit interval or circle traveling at the same speed.
Sufficiently differentiable oval billiards always have invariant rotational curves, but there are only two types of ovals with an invariant horizontal circle in its phase-space: the constant width ovals and some very special symmetric curves. In this work we study the dynamics near the horizontal circle for the billiard map of those two types of ovals, and show that the horizontal circle is approached, from both sides, by other invariant rotational curves. We will also describe some dynamical consequences.
In this paper techniques of twist map theory are applied to the annulus maps arising from dual billiards on a strictly convex closed curve G in the plane. It is shown that there do not exist invariant circles near G when there is a point on G where the radius of curvature vanishes or is discontinuous. In addition, when the radius of curvature is not $C^1$ there are examples with orbits that converge to a point of G. If the derivative of the radius of curvature is bounded, such orbits cannot exist. The final section of the paper concerns an impact oscillator whose dynamics are the same as a dua…
We show the chess billiard map, which was introduced in [HM] in order to study a generalization of the $n$-Queens problem in chess, is a circle homeomorphism. We give a survey of some of the known results on circle homeomorphisms, and apply them to this map. We prove a number of new results which give answers to some of the open questions posed in [HM].
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, the Birkhoff billiard map inside the planar curve has a rotational invariant curve of $2$-periodic orbits. We generalize this statement to curves that are invariant under a rotation by angle $\frac{2π}{k}$, for which the billiard map has a rotational invariant curve of $k$-periodic orbits. Similar result holds true also for Outer billiards and Symplectic bi…
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 billiard flow then every smooth piece $γ$ of the boundary must be algebraic and either is a circle or satisfies very strong restrictions. In particular in the case of ellipse it follows that magnetic billiard is algebraically not integrable for all magnitudes of the magnetic field. We conjecture that circle is the only integrable magnetic billiard not only in th…
In this paper we establish a kind of bijection between the orbits of a polygonal outer billiards system and the orbits of a related (and simpler to analyze) system called the pinwheel map. One consequence of the result is that the outer billiards system has unbounded orbits if and only if the pinwheel map has unbounded orbits. As the pinwheel map is much easier to analyze directly, we think that this bijection will be helpful in attacking some of the main questions about polyonal outer billiards.
We construct families of two-dimensional Sinai billiards whose transfer operators have Ruelle resonances arbitrarily close to 1. Our method involves taking a large enough cover of an initial billiard table, and relating the transfer operator of the covering table to twisted transfer operators of the initial table. We also study the distribution of these resonances which are close to 1.
We consider polygonal billiards with collisions contracting the reflection angle towards the normal to the boundary of the table. In previous work, we proved that such billiards has a finite number of ergodic SRB measures supported on hyperbolic generalized attractors. Here we study the relation of these measures with the ergodic absolutely continuous invariant probability measures (acips) of the slap map, the 1-dimensional map obtained from the billiard map when the angle of reflection is always equal to zero. Our main result states that for a generic polygon, if the reflection law has a Lips…
We consider open circular billiards with one and with two holes. The exact formulas for escape are obtained which involve the Riemann zeta function and Dirichlet L-functions. It is shown that the problem of finding the exact asymptotics in the small hole limit for escape in some of these billiards is equivalent to the Riemann hypothesis.
In this paper, we discuss rotation number on the invariant curve of a one parameter family of outer billiard tables. Given a convex polygon $η$, we can construct an outer billiard table $T$ by cutting out a fixed area from the interior of $η$. $T$ is piece-wise hyperbolic and the polygon $η$ is an invariant curve of $T$ under the billiard map $ϕ$. We will show that, if $β$ is a periodic point under the outer billiard map with rational rotation number $τ= p / q$, then the $n$th iteration of the billiard map is not the local identity at $β$. This proves that the rotation number $τ$ as a function…
It has long been known that the set of primitive pythagorean triples can be enumerated by descending certain ternary trees. We unify these treatments by considering hyperbolic billiard tables in the Poincare disk model. Our tables have m>=3 ideal vertices, and are subject to the restriction that reflections in the table walls are induced by matrices in the triangle group PSU^\pm_{1,1}\Zbb[i]. The resulting billiard map \tilde B acts on the de Sitter space x_1^2+x_2^2-x_3^2=1, and has a natural factor B on the unit circle, the pythagorean triples appearing as the B-preimages of fixed points. We…
Data Science Consulting（数据科学咨询公司）；Universidade Federal de Goiás（戈亚斯联邦大学）；Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora（茹伊斯迪福拉联邦大学）
Can any secrets still be shed by that much studied, uniquely integrable, Elliptic Billiard? Starting by examining the family of 3-periodic trajectories and the loci of their Triangular Centers, one obtains a beautiful and variegated gallery of curves: ellipses, quartics, sextics, circles, and even a stationary point. Secondly, one notices this family conserves an intriguing ratio: Inradius-to-Circumradius. In turn this implies three conservation corollaries: (i) the sum of bounce angle cosines, (ii) the product of excentral cosines, and (iii) the ratio of excentral-to-orbit areas. Monge's Orth…
We show that in a typical polygon the billiard map as well as its associated subshift obtained by coding orbits by the sequence of sides they visit are topologically weakly mixing.
We show that for planar dispersing billiards the return times distribution is, in the limit, Poisson for metric balls almost everywhere w.r.t. the SRB measure. Since the Poincaré return map is piecewise smooth but becomes singular at the boundaries of the partition elements, recent results on the limiting distribution of return times cannot be applied as they require the maps to have bounded second derivatives everywhere. We first prove the Poisson limiting distribution assuming exponentially decaying correlations. For the case when the correlations decay polynomially, we induce on a subset on…
In the class of strictly convex smooth boundaries, each of which not having strip around its boundary foliated by invariant curves, we prove that the Taylor coefficients of the "normalized" Mather's $β$-function are invariants under $C^\infty$-conjugacies. In contrast, we prove that any two elliptic billiard maps are $C^0$-conjugated near their respective boundaries, and $C^\infty$-conjugated in the open cylinder, near the boundary and away from a plain passing through the center of the underlying ellipse. We also prove that if the billiard maps corresponding to two ellipses are topologically …
Ivrii's Conjecture states that in every billiard in Euclidean space the set of periodic orbits has measure zero. It implies that for every $k\geq2$ there are no k-reflective billiards, i.e., billiards having an open set of k-periodic orbits. This conjecture is open in Euclidean spaces, with just few partial results. It is known that in the two-dimensional sphere there exist 3-reflective billiards (Yu.M.Baryshnikov). All the 3-reflective spherical billiards were classified in a paper by V.Blumen, K.Kim, J.Nance, V.Zharnitsky: the boundary of each of them lies in three orthogonal big circles. In…
We study polygonal billiards with reflection laws contracting the reflected angle towards the normal. It is shown that if a polygon does not have parallel sides facing each other, then the corresponding billiard map has finitely many ergodic SRB measures whose basins cover a set of full Lebesgue measure.
In this work we completely describe the dynamics of triangle tiling billiards. In the first part of this work, we propose a geometric approach of dynamics by introducing natural foliations associated to it. In the second part, we exploit the relationship between triangle tiling billiards and a family of fully flipped $3$-interval exchange transformations on the circle. We give a combinatorial approach of dynamics via renormalization. By uniting the two approaches, we prove several conjectures on the dynamics of triangle tiling billiards. First, we prove the Tree Conjecture and the 4n+2 Conject…
In 1978 Jurgen Moser suggested the outer billiards map (Tangent map) as a discontinuous model of Hamiltonian dynamics. A decade earlier, J.B. Jackson and his colleagues at Bell Labs were trying to understand the source of self-sustaining oscillations in digital filters. Some of the discrete mappings used to describe these filters show a remarkable ability to 'shadow' the Tangent map when the polygon in question is regular. In this paper we describe a specific digital filter map (Df) that appears to have dynamics which are conjugate to the Tangent map for a regular N-gon with N even. When N is …
We consider the billiard map inside a polyhedron. We give a condition for the stability of the periodic trajectories. We apply this result to the case of the tetrahedron. We deduce the existence of an open set of tetrahedra which have a periodic orbit of length four (generalization of Fagnano's orbit for triangles), moreover we can study completly the orbit of points along this coding.
The 1d family of Poncelet polygons interscribed between two circles is known as the Bicentric family. Using elliptic functions and Liouville's theorem, we show (i) that this family has invariant sum of internal angle cosines and (ii) that the pedal polygons with respect to the family's limiting points have invariant perimeter. Interestingly, both (i) and (ii) are also properties of elliptic billiard N-periodics. Furthermore, since the pedal polygons in (ii) are identical to inversions of elliptic billiard N-periodics with respect to a focus-centered circle, an important corollary is that (iii)…
We consider the billiard map in the hypercube of $\mathbb{R}^d$. We obtain a language by coding the billiard map by the faces of the hypercube. We investigate the complexity function of this language. We prove that $n^{3d-3}$ is the order of magnitude of the complexity.
In a previous paper (nlin.CD/0107041) the following class of billiards was studied: For $f: [0, +\infty) \longrightarrow (0, +\infty)$ convex, sufficiently smooth, and vanishing at infinity, let the billiard table be defined by $Q$, the planar domain delimited by the positive $x$-semiaxis, the positive $y$-semiaxis, and the graph of $f$. For a large class of $f$ we proved that the billiard map was hyperbolic. Furthermore we gave an example of a family of $f$ that makes this map ergodic. Here we extend the latter result to a much wider class of functions.
The billiard motion inside an ellipsoid $Q \subset \Rset^{n+1}$ is completely integrable. Its phase space is a symplectic manifold of dimension $2n$, which is mostly foliated with Liouville tori of dimension $n$. The motion on each Liouville torus becomes just a parallel translation with some frequency $ω$ that varies with the torus. Besides, any billiard trajectory inside $Q$ is tangent to $n$ caustics $Q_{λ_1},...,Q_{λ_n}$, so the caustic parameters $λ=(λ_1,...,λ_n)$ are integrals of the billiard map. The frequency map $λ\mapsto ω$ is a key tool to understand the structure of periodic billia…
Following recent work of Chernov, Markarian, and Zhang, it is known that the billiard map for dispersing billiards with zero angle cusps has slow decay of correlations with rate 1/n. Since the collisions inside a cusp occur in quick succession, it is reasonable to expect a much faster decay rate in continuous time. In this paper we prove that the flow is rapid mixing: correlations decay faster than any polynomial rate. A consequence is that the flow admits strong statistical properties such as the almost sure invariance principle, even though the billiard map does not. The techniques in this p…
We show that for a fixed curve $K$ and for a family of variables curves $L$, the number of $n$-Poncelet pairs is $\frac{e (n)}{2}$, where $e(n)$ is the number of natural numbers $m$ smaller than $n$ and which satisfies mcd $ (m,n)=1$. The curvee $K$ do not have to be part of the family. In order to show this result we consider an associated billiard transformation and a twist map which preserves area. We use Aubry-Mather theory and the rotation number of invariant curves to obtain our main result. In the last section we estimate the derivative of the rotation number of a general twist map usin…
