Lower bounds on growth rates of periodic billiard trajectories in some irrational polygons (Q2474581)

This paper considers periodic billiard trajectories in irrational polygons (polygons whose angles are irrational multiples of \(\pi\)). Instead of dealing directly with irrational polygons, the author considers the space \({\mathcal P}_m\) of polygons with \(m\) vertices having unit area. This space inherits a topology from \((\mathbb{R}^2)^m\). If the edges of the polygon are labeled \(1,2,\dots,m\), then a periodic billiard trajectory can be associated with a bi-infinite repeating sequence of numbered edges that the billiard path hits. The orbit type of a periodic billiard path is an equivalence class of such bi-finite sequences. For \(U\subset{\mathcal P}_m\), \(N(u,t)\) is the number of orbit types that appear as periodic billiard paths of lengths less than \(t\) for every polygon \(P\in U\). The author proves that, for \(m\geq 3\) and every positive integer \(k\), there is an open set \(U\subset\wp_m\) such that \[ \liminf_{t\to\infty}\,{N(u,t)\over t\log^kt}> 0. \] So, in particular, there is an irrational polygon \(P\) for \(m\geq 3\) and positive integer \(k\) such that \[ \liminf_{t\to\infty}\, {N(p,t)\over t\log^kt}> 0. \] The author's main result is that if \(f_p(n)\) is the number of periodic billiard paths of length less than \(n\), then there exist irrational polygons \(P\) for which \(f_p(n)\) grows superlinearly in \(n\).