Complexity of trajectories in rectangular billiards

DOI10.1007/BF02099463MaRDI QIDQ1903332zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Yanyan Li

Publication date 10 June 1996

Published in Communications in Mathematical Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/chao-dyn/9406001

zbMATH Keywords

billiard in higher dimensionscubic billiardgeneralized Sturmian sequenceshypercubetrajectories cubic billiard

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Special sequences and polynomials (11B83) Low-dimensional dynamical systems (37E99) Combinatorics on words (68R15)

Abstract: Revised version: some minor errors and typos fixed; exposition watered. Abstract: To a trajectory of a billiard in parallelogram we assign its symbolic trajectory - the sequence of numbers of coordinate plane, to which the faces met by the trajectory are parallel. The complexity of the trajectory is the number of different words of length $n$ occurring in it. We prove that for generic trajectories the complexity is well defined and calculate it, confirming the conjecture of Arnoux, Mauduit, Shiokawa and Tamura [AMST].

Review text

The Sturmian sequences are the binary sequences that are a coding of a billiard trajectory in a \((2D)\) square, where the vertical sides are coded by 1 and the horizontal sides by 0. In particular, the (block) complexity of a Sturmian sequence is given by \(\rho (n) = n + 1\), where \(\rho (n)\) is the number of factors (subblocks) of the sequence with length \(n\). What happens if one plays billiard in a cube or hypercube? A conjecture of Rauzy stated that the complexity of the trajectories for the cubic billiards is given by \(\rho (n) = n^2 + n + 1\). This conjecture has been proved by \textit{P. Arnoux}, \textit{C. Mauduit}, \textit{I. Shiokawa} and \textit{J.-I. Tamura} who published two papers [Bull. Soc. Math. Fr. 122, No. 1, 1-12 (1994; Zbl 0791.58034) and Tokyo J. Math. 17, No. 1, 211-218 (1994; Zbl 0814.11014)]. These four authors also conjectured a general formula for the hypercube, the formula presenting a mysterious symmetry in \(n\) (the length of blocks) and \(d-1\) (where \(d\) is the dimension). The author of the paper under review solves the question completely stating in particular that, for reasonable starting angles, one has in dimension \(d\) \[ \rho_d (n) = \sum^{\min (d - 1,n)}_{k = 0} k! {d - 1 \choose k} {n \choose k}. \]

Recommendations

• Complexity of sequences defined by billiard in the cube
• Directional complexity of the hypercubic billiard
• Billiard complexity in the hypercube
• Billiard complexity in rational polyhedra
• Boundary behaviour of a billiard trajectory in ann-dimensional cube

Cites work

• Beatty Sequences, Continued Fractions, and Certain Shift Operators
• Complexity of sequences defined by billiard in the cube
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3174052 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 16592 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 98759 (Why is no real title available?)

Cited in

(38)

• On smooth sets of integers
• Directional complexity of the hypercubic billiard
• Combinatorics on patterns of a bidimensional Sturmian sequence
• Rauzy's conjecture on billiards in the cube
• Billiard complexity in rational polyhedra
• The complexity of functions on lattices
• Analysis of billiard ball computation using phase space logics
• Episturmian words and episturmian morphisms
• Assigning multiple job types to parallel specialized servers
• Discrete segments of \(\mathbb{Z}^3\) constructed by synchronization of words
• The subword complexity of a class of infinite binary words
• Billiard complexity in the hypercube
• A geometrical characterization of factors of multidimensional billiard words and some applications
• Classification of rotations on the torus \(\mathbb T^2\)
• Palindromic factors of billiard words
• Sturmian jungle (or garden?) On multiliteral alphabets
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 5830202 (Why is no real title available?)
• Complexity and cohomology for cut-and-projection tilings
• Complexity of Degenerated Three Dimensional Billiard Words
• Minoration of the complexity function associated to a translation on the torus
• Constructing partial words with subword complexities not achievable by full words
• Complexity of sequences defined by billiard in the cube
• Complexity lower bounds for polygonal billiards
• Digital geometry in image-based metrology
• Factor complexity of \(S\)-adic words generated by the Arnoux-Rauzy-Poincaré algorithm
• Complexité de suites définies par des billards rationnels
• Second Order Balance Property on Christoffel Words
• Statistics of patterns in typical cut and project sets
• Episturmian words: a survey
• *-Sturmian words and complexity
• Minimal Complexities for Infinite Words Written with d Letters
• New examples of words for which binomial complexities and subword complexity coincide
• On balance properties of hypercubic billiard words
• The reflection complexity of sequences over finite alphabets
• On the decidability of monadic second-order logic with arithmetic predicates
• A dynamical view of Tijdeman's solution of the chairman assignment problem
• Complexity of non-abelian cut-and-project sets of polytopal type. I: Special homogeneous Lie groups
• Complexity of cutting words on regular tilings

This page was built for publication: Complexity of trajectories in rectangular billiards

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q1903332)