Billiards in convex bodies with acute angles (Q503271)

In this paper the focus is on the existence of closed billiard trajectories. This is of interest for their relation to symplectic geometry, Hamiltonian dynamics and classical problems in convexity theory. In particular, the authors consider a non-smooth convex body \(K\) in \(\mathbb{R}^d\), and distinguish between classical and generalized trajectories. Classical trajectories may only have reflection (bounce) points on smooth parts of the boundary \(\partial K\). Generalized trajectories may have also reflection points at non-smooth points of \(\partial K\). An acuteness condition is given for non-smooth points of \(\partial K\). In case all non-smooth points of \(\partial K\) satisfy the acute condition, then \(K\) is said to be an acute body. It is proved that, in an acute convex body \(K\subset\mathbb{R}^d\), there exists a closed classical billiard trajectory with no more than \(d + 1\) bounces. In a simplex with all acute dihedral angles, there exists a closed classical billiard trajectory with \(d + 1\) bounces. More generally, in case the shortest closed generalized trajectory has precisely \(d + 1\) bounces, then it is classical. An extension of this result is also provided for generalized normed spaces.