SMI Course on 'Dynamics of Billiards', Cortona, June 29 - July 4, 2025
In the week June 29 - July 4, 2025, the Scuola Matematica Interuniversitaria will offer a summer course in Cortona, Tuscany, on topics in mathematical billiards.
The course will take place in the castle named Palazzone owned by the Scuola Normale Superiore. The intended audience consists of Ph.D. students writing their theses and postdocs. Applications are now open. Traditionally, 12 applicants will be offered free lodging, breakfast and lunch at the Palazzone.
There will be two lecturers, who will cover the following programs:
Krzystof Burdzy (University of Washington):
Borderline billiards theory (such as billiards with no borders)
The lecturer will discuss several models, including Archimedes’ principle for an ideal gas,
pinned billiard balls, rotating billiard tables, and billiard balls in a space without walls.
Some techniques that are related to or arose in these areas will be presented.
Marco Lenci (Universita’ di Bologna):
An introduction to the theory of chaotic billiards
The course will give an introduction to the theory of hyperbolic billiards, developed by
Sinai and his school some 50 years ago. This theory — somehow sought after since the times
of Boltzmann, Poincaré and Birkhoff — has had a profound impact on the development of the
theory of chaotic dynamical systems and its applications, and earned Yakov Sinai his 2014
Abel Prize. The audience will get acquainted with the basic tools of hyperbolic dynamics
in the presence of singularities and will see a fairly detailed sketch of the proof of
the ergodicity of the Sinai billiard, a.k.a. Lorentz gas. A minimal background in measure
theory is required; some rudiments of ergodic theory are welcome.
Deadline for application: April 30, 2025
All info at: https://www.smi-math.unipr.it/cortona/30/