Resonance of ellipsoidal billiard trajectories and extremal rational functions

Abstract

We study resonant billiard trajectories within quadrics in the d-dimensional Euclidean space. We relate them to the theory of approximation, in particular the extremal rational functions on the systems of d intervals on the real line. This fruitful link enables us to prove fundamental properties of the billiard dynamics and to provide a comprehensive study of a large class of non-periodic trajectories of integrable billiards. A key ingredient is a functional-polynomial relation of a generalized Pell type. Applying further these ideas and techniques to s-weak billiard trajectories, we come to a functional-polynomial relation of the same generalized Pell type.