Thesis Oral Defense: "No-Slip Billiards"

Abstract: We investigate the dynamics of no-slip billiards, a model in which small rotating disks may exchange linear and angular momentum at collisions with the boundary. We give new results on periodicity and boundedness of orbits which suggest that a class of billiards (including all polygons) is not ergodic. Computer generated phase portraits demonstrate non-ergodic features, suggesting chaotic no-slip billiards cannot readily be constructed using the common techniques for generating chaos in standard billiards.

Organizers: Renato Feres and Xiang Tang