Non-ergodic \(\mathbb{Z}\)-periodic billiards and infinite translation surfaces (Q742830)

The authors give a criterion for non-ergodicity for certain infinite periodic billiards and directional flows on \(\mathbb{Z}\)-periodic translation surfaces. In particular, the criterion applies to a billiard in an infinite band with periodically spaced vertical barriers and to the Ehrenfest wind-tree model. Namely, in these two examples, both for a full-measure set of parameters of the billiard tables and for tables with rational parameters, for a.e. direction the corresponding directional billiard flow is not ergodic and has uncountably many ergodic components. Using a different terminology, it is proven that the skew-products which arise as Poincaré maps of the above systems are associated to non-regular \(\mathbb{Z}\)-valued cocycles for interval exchange transformations.