Integral formulas for polyhedral and spherical billiards (Q1127668)

Let \(M^{n+1}\) be a complete Riemannian manifold with boundary \(\partial M=:B \neq \varphi\) which is a union of smooth hypersurfaces. The author introduces the notion of reflecting geodesic on \(M\) and throughout the paper the term ``geodesic'' means both the usual and the reflecting one. The geodesics are supposed to be parametrized by arclength. Let \(\gamma :[a,b] \rightarrow M\) be a geodesic and \(t_0\in [a,b]\). A point \(\gamma (t_1)\), \(t_0\neq t_1\in [a,b]\) is said to be a conjugate point to \(\gamma (t_0)\), if there exists a nontrivial Jacobi vector field \(Y\) along \(\gamma\) with \(Y(t_0)=Y(t_1)=0\). The manifold \(M\) is said to be \textit{without conjugate points} if all geodesics have no conjugate points. Let \(T_1M\) be the unit tangent bundle of \(M\) and \(\pi :T_1M\rightarrow M\) the natural projection. For a \(v\in T_1M\) let \({\gamma}_v\) be the geodesic with \(\dot{\gamma}_v(0)=v\), where for \(\pi (v)\in B\), \(\dot{\gamma}_v(0)\) is considered either \(\dot{\gamma}_v(+0)\) or \(\dot{\gamma}_v(-0)\). The geodesics \({\gamma}_v\) are defined on the whole real line \((-\infty, \infty)\) for almost all \(v\in T_1M\). The set of all such vectors \(v\) is denoted by \(SM\). Let \(f^t:SM\rightarrow SM\) be a flow given by \(f^t(v)= \dot{\gamma}_v(t)\) for any \(v\in SM\) and denote by \(\partial SM\) the set of all vectors \(v\in SM\) with \(q=\pi(v)\in B\) and \(\langle v,N(q) \rangle >0\), where \(\langle\;,\;\rangle\) is the Riemannian metric on \(M\) and \(N\) is the unit normal vector field to \(B\) pointing inward. Let \(T\) be the ceiling function on \(\partial SM\), i.e., \(T(v)\) is the first parameter such that \({\gamma}_v(T(v))\in B\), \(T(v)>0\) (possibly \(+\infty\)). Let \(F:\partial SM\rightarrow \partial SM\) be a map given by \(F(v)=\dot{\gamma}_v(T(v)+0)\) for any \(v\in \partial SM\). The manifold \(M\) is said to be \textit{with boundary isolated by conjugate points} if there exist positive measurable functions \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) on \(\partial SM\) such that \({\gamma}_v(\alpha (v))\) is the first conjugate point to \({\gamma}_v(-\beta (v))\) along \({\gamma}_v\) and \(T(v)\geq \alpha (v)+\beta (F(v))\) for any \(v\in \partial SM\). The purpose of the present paper is to study the properties for \(M\) to be without conjugate points, respectively with boundary isolated by conjugate points and to give necessary conditions. The obtained results are stated in Theorems A, D and Corollaries B, C and E.