Wave density conjectures

Wave density conjectures

We currently make some more experiments for the density of wave fronts project. We conjecture there for example that for any polygon wave fronts become dense. In cases like eqilateral triangles or right angle triangles this can be proven because doubling produces a parallelogram that tessellates the plane. This is a Veech case where an adaptation of the proof given in our paper works. For a general triangle, the density of wave fronts becomes more likely due to the additional complexity of the flow but paradoxically, we have then less control about the wave front. For a polygon there are some obvious observations: the Lyapunov exponent is zero, the length of the wave front W_t(p) is 2\pi t for every p as the reflection does not change length locally. The number of disconnected pieces grows with time but diferent disconnected pieces of the wave front can intersect. Asymptotically, we have a gas of small straight intervals floating around in the triangle. This does by no means yet show that the wave front becomes dense. Even if the distribution of the centers of this “interval gas” should be random, there could be again and again small holes appear theoretically.

wave fronts in a triangle
A wave front in a generic triangle at three different times.