TY - JOUR
T1 - Four equivalent properties of integrable billiards
AU - Glutsyuk, Alexei
AU - Izmestiev, Ivan
AU - Tabachnikov, Serge
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
PY - 2021/3
Y1 - 2021/3
N2 - By a classical result of Darboux, a foliation of a Riemannian surface has the Graves property (also known as the strong evolution property) if and only if the foliation comes from a Liouville net. A similar result of Blaschke says that a pair of orthogonal foliations has the Ivory property if and only if they form a Liouville net. Let us say that a strictly geodesically convex curve on a Riemannian surface has the Poritsky property if it can be parametrized in such a way that all of its string diffeomorphisms are shifts with respect to this parameter. In 1950, Poritsky has shown that the only closed plane curves with this property are ellipses. In the present article we show that a curve on a Riemannian surface has the Poritsky property if and only if it is a coordinate curve of a Liouville net. We also recall Blaschke’s derivation of the Liouville property from the Ivory property and his proof of Weihnacht’s theorem: the only Liouville nets in the plane are nets of confocal conics and their degenerations. This suggests the following generalization of Birkhoff’s conjecture: If an interior neighborhood of a closed strictly geodesically convex curve on a Riemannian surface is foliated by billiard caustics, then the metric in the neighborhood is Liouville, and the curve is one of the coordinate lines.
AB - By a classical result of Darboux, a foliation of a Riemannian surface has the Graves property (also known as the strong evolution property) if and only if the foliation comes from a Liouville net. A similar result of Blaschke says that a pair of orthogonal foliations has the Ivory property if and only if they form a Liouville net. Let us say that a strictly geodesically convex curve on a Riemannian surface has the Poritsky property if it can be parametrized in such a way that all of its string diffeomorphisms are shifts with respect to this parameter. In 1950, Poritsky has shown that the only closed plane curves with this property are ellipses. In the present article we show that a curve on a Riemannian surface has the Poritsky property if and only if it is a coordinate curve of a Liouville net. We also recall Blaschke’s derivation of the Liouville property from the Ivory property and his proof of Weihnacht’s theorem: the only Liouville nets in the plane are nets of confocal conics and their degenerations. This suggests the following generalization of Birkhoff’s conjecture: If an interior neighborhood of a closed strictly geodesically convex curve on a Riemannian surface is foliated by billiard caustics, then the metric in the neighborhood is Liouville, and the curve is one of the coordinate lines.
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U2 - 10.1007/s11856-021-2110-8
DO - 10.1007/s11856-021-2110-8
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85102269008
SN - 0021-2172
VL - 241
SP - 693
EP - 719
JO - Israel Journal of Mathematics
JF - Israel Journal of Mathematics
IS - 2
ER -