You can hear the shape of a billiard table: symbolic dynamics and rigidity for flat surfaces (Q2055241)

This article introduces a new idea in the study of Euclidean billiards, the bounce spectrum, which is related conceptually to cutting sequences. Let \(P\) be a finite-sided simply connected Euclidean polygon (convexity is not assumed). If we assign different labels from some alphabet \(\mathcal{A}\) to the sides, then every nonsingular trajectory gives rise to a unique bi-infinite sequence of symbols from \(\mathcal{A}\). The collection of all such sequences (up to isomorphism with other choices of symbols) is called the bounce spectrum of \(P\) and denoted by \(B(P)\). The main result of the paper is the following statement. Theorem. If two simply connected Euclidean polygons have equal bounce spectra, then one of the two situations is possible: (a) Both polygons are right-angled (every angle is a multiple of \(\pi/2\)) and they are related by an affine map; (b) The polygons are similar. Along the proof the authors positively answer an open question by \textit{A. Bankovic} and \textit{C. J. Leininger} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 370, No. 3, 1867--1884 (2018; Zbl 1395.57020)] by proving the next theorem. Support Rigidity Theorem. Two unit-area flat metrics whose Liouville currents have the same support differ by an affine deformation, up to isotopy. Additionally, if either metric has holonomy of order greater than 2 (i.e., it is not induced by a quadratic differential, or does not support a foliation by straight lines), then equal support implies that they differ by isometry, isotopic to the identity. The techniques used provide another way to obtain many results related to cutting sequences and rational tables.