From Rational Billiards to Dynamics on Moduli Spaces

The Conformal Geometry of Billiards

This article provides an introduction to some recent results in billiard dynamics. We present results that follow from a study of compact Riemann surfaces (equipped with a holomorphic 1-form) and an SL2R action on the moduli spaces of these surfaces. We concentrate on the progress toward classification of “optimal” billiard tables, those with the simplest trajectory structure.

Billiards, quadrilaterals and moduli spaces

Bounded Geodesics in Moduli Space

In the moduli space of quadratic differentials over complex structures on a surface, we construct a set of full Hausdorff dimension of points with bounded Teichmüller geodesic trajectories. The main tool is quantitative nondivergence of Teichmüller horocycles, due to Minsky and Weiss. This has an application to billiards in rational polygons.

Introduction to Teichmüller Theory and Its Applications to Dynamics of Interval Exchange Transformations, Flows on Surfaces and Billiards

This text is an expanded version of the lecture notes of a minicourse (with the same title of this text) delivered by the authors in the Bedlewo school “Modern Dynamics and its Interaction with Analysis, Geometry and Number Theory” (from 4 to 16 July, 2011). In the first part of this text, i.e., from Sections 1 to 5, we discuss the Teichmüller and moduli space of translation surfaces, the Teich...

A pr 2 00 3 BOUNDED GEODESICS IN MODULI SPACE

In the moduli space of quadratic differentials over complex structures on a surface, we construct a set of full Hausdorff dimension of points with bounded Teichmüller geodesic trajectories. The main tool is quantitative nondivergence of Teichmüller horocycles, due to Minsky and Weiss. This has an application to billiards in rational polygons.