Ergodic properties of polygonal billiards with strongly contracting reflection laws

Abstract

We consider convex polygonal billiards with a reflection law that contracts the reflection angle towards the normal. Polygonal billiards with orthogonal reflections are called slap maps. For polygons without parallel sides facing each other, the slap map has a finite number of ergodic absolutely continuous invariant probability measures. We show that any billiard with a strongly contracting reflection law has the same number of ergodic SRB measures with the same mixing periods as the ergodic absolutely continuous invariant probabilities of its corresponding slap map. The case of billiards in regular polygons and triangles is studied in detail.