Unbounded orbits for outer billiards. I

DOI10.3934/JMD.2007.1.371MaRDI QIDQ2467034zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Richard Evan Schwartz

Publication date 18 January 2008

Published in Journal of Modern Dynamics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Copyright license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0702073

zbMATH Keywords

arithmetic graphdual billiardsouter billiardsPenrose kitepolygon exchangeself-similar tilingsunbounded orbits

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Symbolic dynamics (37B10) Low-dimensional dynamical systems (37E99) Quasicrystals and aperiodic tilings in discrete geometry (52C23)

Abstract: Outer billiards is a basic dynamical system, defined relative to a planar convex shape. This system was introduced in the 1950's by B.H. Neumann and later popularized in the 1970's by J. Moser. All along, one of the central questions has been: is there an outer billiards system with an unbounded orbit. We answer this question by proving that outer billiards defined relative to the Penrose Kite has an unbounded orbit. The Penrose kite is the quadrilateral that appears in the famous Penrose tiling. We also analyze some of the finer orbit structure of outer billiards on the penrose kite. This analysis shows that there is an uncountable set of unbounded orbits. Our method of proof relates the problem to self-similar tilings, polygon exchange maps, and arithmetic dynamics.

Review text

The question of B.H. Neumann, which dates back to the 1950s, asks if there exists an outer billiards system with an unbounded orbit. We prove that outer billiards for the Penrose kite, the convex quadrilateral from the Penrose tiling, has an unbounded orbit. We also analyze some finer properties of the orbit structure, and in particular produce an uncountable family of unbounded orbits. Our methods relate outer billiards on the Penrose kite to polygon exchangemaps, arithmetic dynamics, and self-similar tilings.

Recommendations

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• Outer Billiards on Kites (AM-171)
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Cited in

(17)

• Renormalization of polygon exchange maps arising from corner percolation
• A proof of Culter's theorem on the existence of periodic orbits in polygonal outer billiards
• Book Review: Outer billiards on kites
• Synchronization properties of random piecewise isometries
• Cone exchange transformations and boundedness of orbits
• On Moser’s boundedness problem of dual Billiards
• Hyperbolic Kac-Moody Weyl groups, billiard tables and actions of lattices on buildings.
• Nonlinear rotations on a lattice
• Embeddings of interval exchange transformations into planar piecewise isometries
• Dissipative outer billiards: a case study
• Asymptotic periodicity in outer billiards with contraction
• Outer billiards with contraction: attracting Cantor sets
• Unbounded orbits for semicircular outer billiard
• Elliptic islands and zero measure escaping orbit in a class of outer billiards
• Existence of non-trivial embeddings of interval exchange transformations into piecewise isometries
• In a Day's work? The origins of outer billiards
• Research announcement: unbounded orbits for outer billiards

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