The billiard decomposition conjecture for planar domains

Let ΩR2\Omega\subset \mathbb{R}^2 be a bounded domain with smooth boundary, and let p=1,2,p=1,2,\dots. A billiard trajectory is a trajectory in Ω\Omega satisfying the billiard reflection law at boundary points. The billiard decomposition conjecture. There is a finite set of billiard trajectories γp,1,,γp,N(p)Ω\gamma_{p,1},\dots,\gamma_{p,N(p)}\subset\Omega, possibly with repetition, such that

ωp(Ω)=j=1N(p)length(γp,N(p)).\omega_p(\Omega)=\sum_{j=1}^{N(p)}\operatorname{length}(\gamma_{p,N(p)}).

This is the natural planar-domain analogue of the result that widths of closed surfaces are sums of lengths of closed geodesics. The source describes the claim as well known to experts, but the supplied text gives no resolution status.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Otis Chodosh and Sithipont Cholsaipant, “The p-widths of a polygon”, arXiv:2505.03047 (2025).

Progress summary

Never refreshed

Nothing recorded yet. Refresh searches the literature and the public web for attempts on this problem, and writes the first summary here.

Solutions 0

No solutions have been posted yet.