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 calculation of cohomology of certain configuration spaces.
In this paper the problem of estimating the number of periodical billiard trajectories is considered. The main result is the theorem on Morse theory for periodical billiard trajectories.
We give lowed bounds on the number of periodic trajectories in strictly convex smooth billiards in $\R^{m+1}$ for $m\ge 3$. For plane billiards (when m=1) such bounds were obtained by G. Birkhoff in the 1920's. Our proof is based on topological methods of calculus of variations - equivariant Morse and Lusternik - Schirelman theories. We compute the equivariant cohomology ring of the cyclic configuration space of the sphere $S^m$, i.e., the space of n-tuples of points $(x_1, ..., x_n)$, where $x_i\in S^m$ and $x_i\ne x_{i+1}$ for i=1,2, ..., n.
We consider billiard trajectories in a smooth convex body in $\mathbb R^d$ and estimate the number of distinct periodic trajectories that make exactly $p$ reflections per period at the boundary of the body. In the case of prime $p$ we obtain the lower bound $(d-2)(p-1)+2$, which is much better than the previous estimates.
Given a domain or, more generally, a Riemannian manifold with boundary, a billiard is the motion of a particle when the field of force is absent. Trajectories of such a motion are geodesics inside the domain; and the particle reflects from the boundary making the angle of incidence equal the angle of reflection. The billiard motion can happen to be a closed (or periodic) one when the billiard ball rebounds k times and then gets to the initial position with the same speed vector as in the beginning. The study of closed billiard trajectories is due to George Birkhoff who in 1927 proved a lower e…
We give the asymptotic growth of the number of primitive periodic trajectories of a two dimensional dispersive billiard, when we prescribe their number of bounces on one of the obstacles.
In this paper we use the Ekeland-Hofer-Zehnder symplectic capacity to provide several bounds and inequalities for the length of the shortest periodic billiard trajectory in a smooth convex body in ${\mathbb R}^{n}$. Our results hold both for classical billiards, as well as for the more general case of Minkowski billiards.
In this paper, extending the works of Milena Radnović and Serge Tabachnikov, we establish conditions for two different non-symmetric norms to define the same billiard reflection law.
This paper deals with Hopf type rigidity for convex billiards on surfaces of constant curvature. We prove that the only convex billiard without conjugate points on the Hyperbolic plane or on the Hemisphere is circular billiard.
We give topological lower bounds on the number of periodic and closed trajectories in strictly convex smooth billiards. We use variational reduction admitting a finite group of symmetries and apply topological approach based on equivariant Morse and Lusternik - Schnirelman theories. The paper continues results published in math.DG/9911226 and math.DG/0006049
We provide lower bounds on the number of periodic Finsler billiard trajectories inside a quadratically convex smooth closed hypersurface $M$ in a $d$-dimensional Finsler space with possibly irreversible Finsler metric. An example of such a system is a billiard in a sufficiently weak magnetic field. The $r$-periodic Finsler billiard trajectories correspond to $r$-gons inscribed in $M$ and having extremal Finsler length. The cyclic group ${\mathbb Z}_r$ acts on these extremal polygons, and one counts the ${\mathbb Z}_r$-orbits. Using Morse and Lusternik-Schnirelmann theories, we prove that if $r…
Let $T\subset \R^{m+1}$ be a strictly convex domain bounded by a smooth hypersurface $X=\partial T$. In this paper we find lower bounds on the number of billiard trajectories in $T$ which have a prescribed intial point $A\in X$, a prescribed final point $B\in X$ and make a prescribed number $n$ of reflections at the boundary $X$. We apply a topological approach based on calculation of cohomology rings of certain configuration spaces.
The main result of this paper is, that for convex billiards in higher dimensions, in contrast with 2D case, for every point on the boundary and for every $n$ there always exist billiard trajectories developing conjugate points at the $n$-th collision with the boundary. We shall explain that this is a consequence of the following variational property of the billiard orbits in higher dimension. If a segment of an orbit is locally maximizing, then it can not pass too close to the boundary. This fact follows from the second variation formula for the Length functional. It turns out that this formul…
Given a planar compact convex billiard table $T$, we give an algorithm to find the shortest generalised closed billiard orbits on $T$. (Generalised billiard orbits are usual billiard orbits if $T$ has smooth boundary.) This algorithm is finite if $T$ is a polygon and provides an approximation scheme in general. As an illustration, we show that the shortest generalised closed billiard orbit in a regular $n$-gon $R_n$ is 2-bounce for $n \ge 4$, with length twice the width of $R_n$. As an application we obtain an algorithm computing the Ekeland-Hofer-Zehnder capacity of the four-dimensional domai…
In this note we study the higher dimensional convex billiards satisfying the so-called Gutkin property. A convex hypersurface $S$ satisfies this property if any chord $[p,q]$ which forms angle $δ$ with the tangent hyperplane at $p$ has the same angle $δ$ with the tangent hyperplane at $q$. Our main result is that the only convex hypersurface with this property in $\mathbf{R}^d, d\geq 3$ is a round sphere. This extends previous results on Gutkin billiards obtained in \cite{B0}.
In this paper we prove the Birkhoff-Poritsky conjecture for centrally-symmetric $C^2$-smooth convex planar billiards. We assume that the domain $\mathcal A$ between the invariant curve of $4$-periodic orbits and the boundary of the phase cylinder is foliated by $C^0$-invariant curves. Under this assumption we prove that the billiard curve is an ellipse. For the original Birkhoff-Poritsky formulation we show that if a neighborhood of the boundary of billiard domain has a $C^1$-smooth foliation by convex caustics of rotation numbers in the interval (0; 1/4] then the boundary curve is an ellipse.…
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 analogous characterization for isosceles tetrahedra in terms of continuous quasigeodesic flows. Moreover, we show an optimal regularity result for convex bodies: the billiard dynamics is continuous if the boundary is of class $\mathcal{C}^{2,1}$. In particular, billiard trajectories converge to geodesics on the boundary in this case. Our proof of the latter co…
We consider billiard ball motion in a convex domain of a constant curvature surface influenced by the constant magnetic field. We prove that if the billiard map is totally integrable then the boundary curve is necessarily a circle. This result is a manifestation of the so-called Hopf rigidity phenomenon which was recently obtained for classical billiards on constant curvature surfaces.
We explore connections furnished by the Funk metric, a relative of the Hilbert metric, between projective geometry, billiards, convex geometry and affine inequalities. We first show that many metric invariants of the Funk metric are invariant under projective transformations as well as projective duality. These include the Holmes-Thompson volume and surface area of convex subsets, and the length spectrum of their boundary, extending results of Holmes-Thompson and Álvarez Paiva on Schäffer's dual girth conjecture. We explore in particular Funk billiards, which generalize hyperbolic billiards in…