Central Symmetry and Seven Area Identities for Even N-Periodics in the Elliptic Billiard

Reznik, Garcia and Koiller listed many experimentally found invariants of the families of N-periodic billiard trajectories in an ellipse. Seven of their rows, k406,a, k607, k609, k610, k905, k906 and k907,b (records AMR-050-0024, -0035, -0037, -0038, -0064, -0065 and -0067 of the UnsolvedMath collection), state for even N that a ratio of two signed areas, built from the trajectory, its outer or inner polygon and the foci, equals 1, or that two centroids lie at the centre. We prove them in the form in which they are true: for every trajectory of even least period whose caustic is a confocal ellipse, convex or self-intersecting, the two signed areas are equal at every member of the family (for k610, at every member where the polygons are defined), and for k406,a the vertex centroid is the centre and the area centroid is the centre wherever the area is nonzero; so each ratio equals 1 wherever its denominator is nonzero. The argument is the one the source used for sibling rows: an even periodic trajectory is centrally symmetric, a classical fact printed by Stachel, and every construction involved commutes with the half-turn and with cyclic relabelling. We give a self-contained proof and record where the ratios are undefined. For k607 the common area vanishes along whole families, also inside the row's class N ≡ 0 (mod 4): for N = 8, 12, 16 at b/a = 0.5394187523…, 0.5618074057…, 0.5688313760…, for N = 10 at b/a = 0.5543486017… and for N = 6 at b/a = 1/2. The common areas of k905, k610 and, in star families, k906 vanish at isolated members, the polygons of k610 degenerate exactly at the members with a vertex on a directrix of the caustic, and the area centroid of k406,a is undefined at isolated members. Apart from this degeneracy criterion these findings are numerical, and nonvanishing elsewhere is not proved. Row k907,b uses a symbol that the source does not define; the theorem holds for every reading that applies one isometry-natural recipe at both foci. This is an unrefereed note. Unrefereed preprint released for independent mathematical scrutiny. Publication on Zenodo does not constitute peer review. AI-assisted tools supported research, computation, proof development, and manuscript preparation. The author remains responsible for all claims and the final text. Corpus identifiers: AMR-050-0024, AMR-050-0035, AMR-050-0037, AMR-050-0038, AMR-050-0064, AMR-050-0065, AMR-050-0067

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Publication Details

Journal
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Published
2026-10-15
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23396997
Primary Topic
Mathematics and Applications
Type
preprint
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preprint

Central Symmetry and Seven Area Identities for Even N-Periodics in the Elliptic Billiard

Alper Ferudun
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Mathematics and Applications
preprint

Central Symmetry and Seven Area Identities for Even N-Periodics in the Elliptic Billiard

Alper Ferudun
preprint en

Abstract

Reznik, Garcia and Koiller listed many experimentally found invariants of the families of N-periodic billiard trajectories in an ellipse. Seven of their rows, k406,a, k607, k609, k610, k905, k906 and k907,b (records AMR-050-0024, -0035, -0037, -0038, -0064, -0065 and -0067 of the UnsolvedMath collection), state for even N that a ratio of two signed areas, built from the trajectory, its outer or inner polygon and the foci, equals 1, or that two centroids lie at the centre. We prove them in the form in which they are true: for every trajectory of even least period whose caustic is a confocal ellipse, convex or self-intersecting, the two signed areas are equal at every member of the family (for k610, at every member where the polygons are defined), and for k406,a the vertex centroid is the centre and the area centroid is the centre wherever the area is nonzero; so each ratio equals 1 wherever its denominator is nonzero. The argument is the one the source used for sibling rows: an even periodic trajectory is centrally symmetric, a classical fact printed by Stachel, and every construction involved commutes with the half-turn and with cyclic relabelling. We give a self-contained proof and record where the ratios are undefined. For k607 the common area vanishes along whole families, also inside the row's class N ≡ 0 (mod 4): for N = 8, 12, 16 at b/a = 0.5394187523…, 0.5618074057…, 0.5688313760…, for N = 10 at b/a = 0.5543486017… and for N = 6 at b/a = 1/2. The common areas of k905, k610 and, in star families, k906 vanish at isolated members, the polygons of k610 degenerate exactly at the members with a vertex on a directrix of the caustic, and the area centroid of k406,a is undefined at isolated members. Apart from this degeneracy criterion these findings are numerical, and nonvanishing elsewhere is not proved. Row k907,b uses a symbol that the source does not define; the theorem holds for every reading that applies one isometry-natural recipe at both foci. This is an unrefereed note. Unrefereed preprint released for independent mathematical scrutiny. Publication on Zenodo does not constitute peer review. AI-assisted tools supported research, computation, proof development, and manuscript preparation. The author remains responsible for all claims and the final text. Corpus identifiers: AMR-050-0024, AMR-050-0035, AMR-050-0037, AMR-050-0038, AMR-050-0064, AMR-050-0065, AMR-050-0067

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Mathematics and Applications
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