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Topological entropy of polygon exchange transformations and polygonal billiards

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2001

EUGENE GUTKIN  and
NICOLAI HAYDN
EUGENE GUTKIN
Affiliation:
Mathematics Department, USC, Los Angeles, 90089-1113, USA (e-mail: [email protected]) (e-mail: [email protected])
NICOLAI HAYDN
Affiliation:
Mathematics Department, USC, Los Angeles, 90089-1113, USA (e-mail: [email protected]) (e-mail: [email protected])
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Abstract

We study the topological entropy of a class of transformations with mild singularities: the generalized polygon exchanges. This class contains, in particular, polygonal billiards. Our main result is a geometric estimate, from above, on the topological entropy of generalized polygon exchanges. One of the applications of our estimate is that the topological entropy of polygonal billiards is zero. This implies the subexponential growth of various geometric quantities associated with a polygon. Other applications are to the piecewise isometries in two dimensions, and to billiards in rational polyhedra.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems , Volume 17 , Issue 4 , August 1997 , pp. 849 - 867
Copyright
© 1997 Cambridge University Press

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