Existence of a Periodic Orbit for Billiards in Polygons

Abstract

We prove that the billiard flow in any finite polygon has at least one periodic orbit. The proof by contradiction is based on a fundamental result on the dynamics of the billiard flow by Galperin, Krüger and Troubetzkoy, on the geometry of a one-parameter scaling of the natural Riemannian metric on the unit tangent bundle, and on the topology of the skeleton or cut-locus of the scaled metrics.