Negative refraction and tiling billiards

DOI10.1515/ADVGEOM-2017-0053MaRDI QIDQ1747149zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Diana Davis, Jenny Rustad, Alexander St Laurent, Kelsey L. DiPietro

Publication date 4 May 2018

Published in advg (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1502.02053

zbMATH Keywords

negative refractiontiling billiard

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Tilings in (2) dimensions (aspects of discrete geometry) (52C20)

Abstract: We introduce a new dynamical system that we call "tiling billiards," where trajectories refract through planar tilings. This system is motivated by a recent discovery of physical substances with negative indices of refraction. We investigate several special cases where the planar tiling is created by dividing the plane by lines, and we describe the results of computer experiments.

Review text

The authors introduce a dynamical system, that they call \textit{tiling billiard}, where the trajectories refract through planar tilings (a subdivision of the plane into regions). They present examples of trajectories that obey the following conditions (from the established literature on inner and outer billiards): are periodic, cannot escape, fill a region densely. Much of the literature on billiards is focused on the polygonal planar case. Several special situations where the tiling is obtained by dividing the plane in lines (for example into congruent triangles) are analyzed -- cases where the tiling has even valence at any vertex (two-colorable). The authors complete some previous results available in the literature. They conclude by giving some new interesting examples and providing several novel results on tiling billiards. Some new open questions, based on their experimental results, are also conjectured.

Recommendations

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Cites work

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Cited in

(11)

• Periodicity and ergodicity in the trihexagonal tiling
• NegSnell
• Triangle tiling billiards and the exceptional family of their escaping trajectories: circumcenters and Rauzy gasket
• Tiling billiards and Dynnikov's helicoid
• Geometry of refractions and reflections through a biperiodic medium
• Tiling billards on triangle tilings, and interval exchange transformations
• Non-periodic not everywhere dense trajectories in triangular billiards
• Deviations for generalized tiling billiards in cyclic polygons
• A geometric dynamical system with relation to billiards
• Homology in combinatorial refraction billiards
• Toric promotion with reflections and refractions

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