groups and dynamics (abstract)

Texas A&M University, Department of Mathematics, 216 Milner Hall, 23rd of April 2008, 3:00-3:50

Groups and Dynamics Seminar

Polygonal billiards and Dynkin diagrams

Yaroslav Vorobets of Texas A&M University

This talk is a follow-up to recent Frontiers lectures by John Smillie. We consider polygonal billiards that are similar to the square billiard, namely, each nonsingular orbit is either periodic or uniformly distributed. I will explain how Dynkin diagrams (and some other graphs) can be used to construct such billiard tables.