The conformal geometry of billiards

Abstract

This article provides an introduction to some recent results in billiard dynamics. We present results that follow from a study of compact Riemann surfaces (equipped with a holomorphic 1-form) and an SL2R action on the moduli spaces of these surfaces. We concentrate on the progress toward classification of "optimal" billiard tables, those with the simplest trajectory structure. © 2010 American Mathematical Society.