Fagnano orbits of polygonal dual billiards (Q1125235)

While normal people are playing billiards on the interior of a billiard table, mathematicians may, without disturbing them, play dual billiards on the exterior. A billiard orbit progresses by reflecting successive edges in supporting lines. A dual billiard ball, on the other hand, is shot from an external point, so as to graze the boundary of the table, after contact, it continues exactly as far again in the same direction, stops, and repeats this motion along the other supporting line. The orbit may be closed, or infinite; Fig. 2 of the article shows a beautiful fractal example. If the table is a polygon \(P\) with vertices \((p_1,p_2, \dots,p_n)\), and the player plays cautiously enough that the ball, having grazed the table at \(p_i\), never crosses the extended edge \(p_{i+1}p_{i+2}\) before changing direction, the ball will visit each vertex in order (and repeat this behaviour infinitely many times). Such an orbit is called a Fagnano orbit. For a table with an odd number of vertices, the Fagnano orbit is unique if it exists, whereas if \(n\) is even, such orbits are not isolated. It is shown that a polygon \(Q\) circumscribed about \(P\) is a Fagnano orbit if and only if its area is maximal among all such circumscribed polygons; and the ratio area(Q)/area(P) attains its minimum, \(1/\cos^2 (\pi/n)\), if and only if \(P\) is affine-regular. A further result is given concerning the dynamics of the medial map. There are various elegant dualities between these results and known results on ordinary billiard polygons. Connections with the theory of Fourier series are also briefly explained.