Billiard ordered games and books (Q2125713)

Within the broad class of mathematical billiards the Fomenko school has introduced the concept of complex billiard domains. These are constructed by gluing planar sets bounded by arcs of confocal conics along common edges to form billiard books. Such new constructions enable the modeling of new kinds of integrable system behaviors. The ultimate goal is to show that every integrable system with two degrees of freedom is equivalent to such billiard system. This paper explores the idea of billiard books to develop a greater understanding of billiard ordered games, as introduced in [the first and the third author, J. Phys. A, Math. Gen. 37, No. 4, 1269--1276 (2004; Zbl 1108.37041)]. The intention is to extend the dynamics of billiard ordered games to any initial conditions and to study their topological properties. The authors proceed by summarizing the ideas behind billiard ordered games and then introduce the billiard books used in this paper. Examples of billiard ordered games that can be realized with the billiard books are given. Then they analyze the dynamics of the billiard particle for a variety of caustics and initial conditions. A primary result is a description of the billiard book that will lead to a given billiard ordered game. Finally, the authors provide a topological analysis of the billiards within the billiard books associated with billiard ordered games.