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This article is cited in 6 scientific papers (total in 6 papers)
Periodic trajectories in the regular pentagon
Diana Davisa, Dmitry Fuchsb, Serge Tabachnikovc a Department of Mathematics, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA
b Department of Mathematics, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
c Department of Mathematics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
Abstract:
We consider periodic billiard trajectories in a regular pentagon. It is known that the trajectory is periodic if and only if the tangent of the angle formed by the trajectory and the side of the pentagon belongs to $(\sin36^\circ)\mathbb Q[\sqrt5]$. Moreover, for every such direction, the lengths of the trajectories, both geometric and combinatorial, take precisely two values. In this paper, we provide a full computation of these lengths as well as a full description of the corresponding symbolic orbits. We also formulate results and conjectures regarding the billiards in other regular polygons.
Key words and phrases:
periodic billiard trajectories, regular pentagon, Veech alternative, closed geodesics, regular dodecahedron.
Received: February 5, 2011
Citation:
Diana Davis, Dmitry Fuchs, Serge Tabachnikov, “Periodic trajectories in the regular pentagon”, Mosc. Math. J., 11:3 (2011), 439–461
Linking options:
https://www.mathnet.ru/eng/mmj426 https://www.mathnet.ru/eng/mmj/v11/i3/p439
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