Triangular-Grid Billiards and Plabic Graphs

DOI10.5070/C63160422MaRDI QIDQ6391102arXivFDO

Authors Colin Defant, Pakawut Jiradilok

Publication date 14 February 2022

Published in arXiv

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.5070/C63160422

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Extremal combinatorics (05D99) Elementary problems in Euclidean geometries (51M04)

arXiv classification

math.CO

Abstract: Given a polygon $P$ in the triangular grid, we obtain a permutation $p{i}_P$ via a natural billiards system in which beams of light bounce around inside of $P$. The different cycles in $p{i}_P$ correspond to the different trajectories of light beams. We prove that [ ext{area}(P)geq 6 ext{cyc}(P)-6quad ext{and}quad ext{perim}(P)geqfrac{7}{2} ext{cyc}(P)-frac{3}{2},] where $extarea(P)$ and $extperim(P)$ are the (appropriately normalized) area and perimeter of $P$, respectively, and $extcyc(P)$ is the number of cycles in $p{i}_P$. The inequality concerning $extarea(P)$ is tight, and we characterize the polygons $P$ satisfying $extarea(P)=6extcyc(P)-6$. These results can be reformulated in the language of Postnikov's plabic graphs as follows. Let $G$ be a connected reduced plabic graph with essential dimension $2$. Suppose $G$ has $n$ marked boundary points and $v$ (internal) vertices, and let $c$ be the number of cycles in the trip permutation of $G$. Then we have [vgeq 6c-6quad ext{and}quad ngeqfrac{7}{2}c-frac{3}{2}.]

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